


The Lives and Times of a Consulting Detective

by Silberias



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Historical, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, One Shot Collection, Sherlock and the Speedy Hudson Case is a John/Sherlock oneshot, Some Period Typical Attitudes, if you are just here for one thing, most chapters labeled with the ship, some irreverent!Sherlock, some slash if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 05:04:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 39,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16361357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silberias/pseuds/Silberias
Summary: This is a large collection of a variety of ships, AUs, and seriousness ranging from goofy to squicky. Stories are moved from my ff.net account and can still be read there individually.





	1. Bright Copper Kettles - Sherlock/Molly

**Author's Note:**

> This is a giant collection of one-shots/small chaptered stories of almost all of my Sherlock fanfic. Things that were too small to come from tumblr are still on tumblr and fics that had already been posted over here have not been moved. This is a large collection of a variety of ships, AUs, and seriousness ranging from goofy to squicky. Read at your own risk!
> 
>  
> 
> Sherlock is just getting done with a case and all he wants is a quiet place to relax afterwards. He knows just where to go to get it, too.

His bones even felt weary, and suddenly the dramatic rooms of his flat on Baker Street didn't appeal. Mrs. Hudson would buzz around him, and John would quiz him about where he'd gone after wrapping the case up, and there wouldn't be a moment's peace. The two people waiting for him there would've already had their tea and all he could look forward to would be dregs or have to actually stand up and make a fresh pot. All Sherlock wanted to do was sleep, or at the very least not be expected to be human.

He wondered when he'd last slept—a good proper sleep. John had caught several hours here and there over the last several days, but Sherlock had only dozed off twice. After he hailed a cab for himself and got in, he rubbed his face wearily. To set things off even better he was getting a caffeine headache on top of feeling dehydrated and shaky with a nicotine craving.

"Where to sir?"

"Uhm…1492 Haversham, please." Molly would maybe make him tea, and even if she didn't she wouldn't buzz around. He wouldn't be facing a bloody inquisition about his appearance. Molly always understood, and she was lovely for it. Shutting his eyes and trying to calm the headache that way, Sherlock smiled a little. Molly was lovely in general.

The spring in his step as he climbed the three flights up to Molly's flat was because he was going to see Molly. Molly who didn't demand to know every little thing about him. Molly who cuddled into him on the nights he stayed over and willingly ate whatever he made her for breakfast without questioning if he was experimenting on her or not. Sherlock still felt awful, of course, but with his girlfriend—was that the word John would want him to use? Probably—he would feel better.

He rang the bell and leaned up against the door jamb trying to look nonchalant.

"Sherlock I gave you a key so you could come and go as you wanted," Molly huffed at him, a smile lingering on her lips as she let him in. Sherlock snaked a hand around her waist as he closed the door and leaned them both up against it.

"Hmm—didn't want to push my luck," he murmured, cupping his hand at the back of her neck to gently bring her forward for a kiss. For a minute or more, his aching body and his soon-to-be-splitting headache were pushed aside in favor of kissing Molly and trailing his lips across her face. He about jumped out of his skin when the kettle started up a howling whistle.

Molly dropped her hands around his waist, keeping him close to her for a second longer than was comfortable with the noise from the boiling water.

"Tea?"

"Please," he said, stepping away from her and following her into her little kitchen.

While the tea was steeping Sherlock raided the emergency supply of patches—Molly would toss him out if he smoked, he would have to deal with feeding the nicotine addiction rather than the fixation. Molly looked at him with a quizzical eye as he returned to the kitchen, and he held up one finger in answer to her. The smile he got in reward was more than enough to justify the promise that he not abuse the nicotine patches she kept here for him.

"Mrs. Wallace made biscuits and gave them to me, let me get them."

Sherlock didn't wait for her, instead walking into the living room with his tea and sinking down into her couch with what was _not_ a groan of satisfaction. Molly followed soon enough with her own tea and the biscuits, and it occurred to Sherlock that she'd had enough water going for both of them.

"You knew I'd be over."

"I knew you'd be over," she agreed, curling up next to him. He only just felt her taking his teacup and saucer away from him as he fell asleep.


	2. Melt - John/Sherlock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock is normally such a rigid person that when he finally decides to throw himself down for a nap, John can't bring himself to wake the man up. Instead, he threads his fingers through Sherlock's hair and thinks about something a woman told him once about love. Takes place after S2.1, ignores S2.3. Complete.

It had taken Sherlock about three days to wear himself out enough to admit he needed a nap more than a new violin composition. John had been sitting on the couch, watching the telly quite happily—Sherlock was too preoccupied to yell at John's favorite programmes, which was nice—when Sherlock had stopped dead in the middle of his relentless pacing. The sudden lack of motion caught John's attention only briefly before Sherlock turned on his heel and threw himself towards the couch, intent on a nap of some sort.

John sat in shock for a few moments as Sherlock lay his head on John's lap, his eyes wide as he assessed his new surroundings. He didn't so much as frown as scowl fiercely for a moment before he stole the pillow from the other end of the couch and stuffed it under his own head, on John's lap. Within moments his eyes were closed and his breathing was evening out towards regularity. John—who had been trying to get Sherlock to try to go to sleep for the last day—twisted his mouth a little but reached for the remote to turn the volume down a little. Sherlock lay there, head in John's lap, for the rest of the afternoon.

After the last of his shows were over, John turned off the telly and sat in the silence—he could see why Sherlock liked it to be quiet when he thought, sometimes, it was quite soothing. Looking down at his flatmate, he smiled a little when he saw that Sherlock had his face tucked towards John in his sleep. Very hesitantly he threaded one of Sherlock's curls between his fingers, watching the hair spring back softly towards the detective's scalp. Knowing that somehow, _somehow_ , Sherlock would know what he'd done, John then decided to keep doing it—just one lock of hair in disarray would point towards some sort of forlorn lovestory, he was sure, and that just wasn't the case.

Sherlock was his best friend, but he was more than that. John wasn't gay—but if Sherlock wanted him, ever, then that was fine. It was all fine, to John. Irene Adler's words had struck him, last year, struck him hard. She was gay, she'd said, but that didn't stop her from loving Sherlock—and she'd said she could _see_ the way John cared for the dark haired man. John's fingers moved from Sherlock's curly hair down towards his cheek, smoothing the blade of his thumb down the prominent cheekbone while his fingers just traced the jawbone.

It wasn't fair, John decided, leaning against his other hand—fingers unconsciously touching the same places on his own face. Sherlock could, from certain angles, look classically, achingly beautiful, while John sometimes wondered if his face occasionally mutated—women who eyed him up soon lost all interest after they saw Sherlock's beaky mug. One of John's fingers brushed against the dark haired man's pulsepoint, just long enough to feel one sluggish beat of his heart.

It was almost dark when Sherlock finally stirred—half the hair on his head was fluffy, fingercombed, while the other half would probably be crabby and smushed. His flatmate didn't open his eyes, but he did reach a hand up to grasp John's arm. A small smile curved into his lips and he took a deep breath before snuggling a little into John's chest. The exhaled air was warm and damp even through John's jumper.

"Like that do you?"

"John, I will pay four percent of your rent for every day you do this," Sherlock said as he rearranged his head on the pillow a little.

"So if I were to do this every day, every month, you would pay my half, just like that?"

"It is an acceptable exchange, yes. I am an incredibly light sleeper, yet you have managed to avoid waking me for an extended amount of time—and I do believe the last time I awoke this relaxed was when I woke up in Molly Hooper's lab after she spent the afternoon humming….for all the things she is hardly adequate at, Molly Hooper excels at humming," Sherlock said, only opening his eyes as he finished speaking. John didn't respond, just continued threading Sherlock's hair through his fingers, having started to enjoy the feel of it over the last several hours. He hadn't dared move, knowing there'd be hell to pay if he woke up his flatmate from a well-deserved sleep.

"You know, John, I actually think I can't get up at the moment, you've quite melted me to the couch with this behavior. Perhaps only two percent of the rent, I think, else I'll get nothing done." With that, the detective closed his eyes once again, but didn't go back to sleep. His hand tightened around John's arm, and he once again turned his face towards John's chest. John smiled a little, knowing that Sherlock had gone away to his mind palace—he'd learned to tell because Sherlock's fingers of his left hand always indicated when he was opening boxes, re-organizing patterns, connecting ideas, and the detective's hand was twitching where it lay on his middle.

It would be a while yet before Sherlock was ready to stand up and resume his manic pacing, but for now he was getting things done—the part that mattered to Sherlock—and he was resting—the part that mattered to John. The doctor had a sudden urge to lean forward just a little and press his lips against his flatmate's forehead, but he resisted. Sherlock rarely went to his mind palace when there were people around to bother him—that he'd gone there just now indicated that he trusted John not to bother him while he was there. So John watched Sherlock's eyes flitting around behind his lids, and thought about loving Sherlock as he ought to be loved.

The hand at his arm—he still had his head leaning against his hand, his arm still raised and bent to accommodate the position—squeezed once again, and didn't let go.


	3. Sherlock Holmes & The Arthur 'Speedy' Hudson Case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why did Sherlock move into 221B before he even knew he had a flatmate? Because his mother asked him to.

Sherlock was disappointed in John. Not _very_ disappointed, but a little. Well, if he was very honest he was disappointed in everyone around him who had attempted to lie to him his entire life. But that was another matter entirely. John lived with him. John lived with him and watched him—and more importantly, John knew Mrs. Hudson and spoke with Mrs. Hudson and saw how she doted upon Sherlock and how Sherlock doted upon her. He saw how Sherlock doted on _no one_ else. It was because of a secret, from long ago.

It was something, Mycroft had told him softly when Sherlock was twenty and shaking with fury, that he was never meant to discover. His elder brother, nearing thirty and losing hair rapidly already, sat mournfully in a chair that was far too serious for him. Sherlock paced around the room, the tremors in his hands far too great to have any strength in his fingers else he might have resorted to shaking the rest of the truth out of his brother. He'd been lied to in the worst of ways, in his opinion.

He had long ago accepted that he was adopted—no one spoke of it, but in a family where everyone had russet or blond locks, Sherlock stuck out in a physically painful way. His fluffy black curls washed out his pale skin where the rest of his family was almost ruddy in comparison. And his nose was entirely wrong as well. His mother had tried throughout his childhood to reassure him that he had his father's eyes, but Sherlock was above comforting himself with pretty lies. Besides, there was a tightness to the way she said he had his father's eyes that caused immediate distrust.

It didn't bother him too much, that he was adopted, but it did bring questions. Questions that he knew would never be answered because of his family's frigid atmosphere. Sherlock had held little hope of ever meeting either of his biological parents—it would have been a treat, though, to see if they'd had other children. To see if those siblings of his were any match to him in brain power. It would have been an absolute _treat_. He imagined how if he found them, he would have two families. One which got him places in life, and another that loved him for the fact that he looked like them. The second appealed to Sherlock far more than the first, if he was honest.

The truth, however, had alienated him from his entire family except for Mycroft—and Mummy on her birthday, but that was all any of them got. The truth was that this dotty old widowed landlady, Mrs. Hudson, was Sherlock's mother. He had first met her when he popped into the shop her son Martin ran for her. Sherlock recalled that he had been after a coffee on his way to university. At first it was Martin that had arrested him, and then his eyes had been dragged towards the woman who fretted at how the ginger teenager handled change. Martin had his same nose, mouth—his curls were the same, save the color. And then there was the woman—her hair had been dark, ink black once upon a time but it was heading on towards gray now. Her mouth had the same outrageous Cupid's bow and Sherlock had fought against touching his own lips to double-check the resemblance. It had thinned with her age, but he could see it.

That was fifteen years ago and still sometimes if Sherlock wasn't careful his blood would run to ice with rage. Mrs. Hudson had been almost exactly what he had always wanted in a mother—she was sweet, and she fretted and loved and was just _open_ and _nice_. And he'd been kept from her his entire life, living in the icebox that was the Holmes family. He hadn't known how to react. He just stood and sputtered for a few seconds before turning and running. He sprinted out of the shop, tripping into people and nearly being hit in the street multiple times. Somehow he had made it to Mycroft's office—his brilliant older brother would fix this, his brilliant older brother would tell him _why_ —and collapsed when the whole sad story was tugged out of tightly closed lockers.

That their father was a womanizer was no mystery, both Mycroft and Sherlock had each known this since they'd learned to talk. In fact it was Mycroft who, at age ten, had coached the then three year old Sherlock on what not to tell Mummy they'd seen Father doing if they ever saw him 'hugging' random women. That he'd left an upper-lower-class woman pregnant and alone wouldn't have been any surprise either, but then why was Sherlock living as his father's legitimate son rather than with his mother as her mistake?

"She's quite smart, I don't know if you spoke with her at all in the midst of it. She sees things the way they are, and tells people such—I used to have coffee there, at Baker Street, when I was at uni. If you want to know where that brain came from, Sherlock, it came from that poor woman at Baker Street and from Father," Mycroft's words barely penetrated the fog over Sherlock's brain, at least until after a meaningful pause his plain, boring older brother continued in a softer, very disinterested voice. The voice he used when he wanted Father to ignore him and Sherlock to pay attention.

"Mrs. Hudson…The Mrs. to Mr. Arthur 'Speedy' Hudson. She's married to the mob, Sherlock—Father stole a piece of another man's cake. Mr. Hudson was deeply upset with Father—had him kidnapped in the dead of night, told him they could do this the easy way or the hard way. The easy way was that Father take you in when you arrived and nothing more would be said about it. The hard way was to choose not to take you in, and cast a blind eye towards Hudson & Family's dealings, even fund some of them. You…can of course understand which Father chose."

Fifteen years since then and now and a lot had happened.

Sherlock had immediately wanted to reach out despite being counseled against it by Mycroft and forbidden by Father. Soon he had turned to self-destruction instead. No one would be able to love him, he reasoned easily through the drugs, because the only one capable of loving him had been forced to give him up. Father's people were strategically placed everywhere near Baker Street, and, for six years of drug-addled wandering, Sherlock saw nothing of the sweet woman with the Cupid's bow mouth or her curly used-to-be-inky-black hair.

But then he had been sober enough one day to read the paper. He had awoken in Mycroft's study, curled on the couch, covered in a worn out old house coat. His brother was answering email at his desk, swanning for his coming promotion—Mycroft Holmes was, Sherlock had thought, about to become the Commonwealth. At least, he'd amended as he tried to sit up, if he was correct in his estimation of how many days he'd lost on that last bender.

"I brought you the paper, there is an interesting article that I wonder might interest you, Sherlock. And a letter, but I will give that to you once you find the article and you've had a coffee—two sugars still?" He had shivered and nodded, reaching out a shaky hand to snatch at the paper. Curling once again into a ball he tried to read the letters on the page but his eyes wouldn't focus and dammit all—it took him a few minutes before he was able to bully his brain into behaving well enough to read.

 _Arthur 'Speedy' Hudson trial preparation slow going as public favor shifts—_ Sherlock had frozen, that name burning through the haze the drugs had left behind in his brain. Gripping the paper fiercely now, he had no trouble deciphering the article. It was American, he could tell that much by the spellings, in Florida because of the general age, tan, and paunch of the prosecutor who was pictured on the front page—the only place in America where those three coincided was Florida. Sherlock tore through the rest of the story, picking apart what the defense planned on using to get the man off and—wait.

Looking up from the paper, Sherlock stared across the room at his brother. The shakes were back a little, but not as bad. He wanted something to take the edge off; something to put in his body that was bad for it, but the coffee still hadn't come. Mycroft stared impassively back at him for a long moment before opening a drawer at knee level on his desk, taking out a sealed envelope. His brother didn't stand as he proffered the letter, and neither did he wave it about in the air.

So Sherlock stood, huffily drawing the dressing gown closed around himself—remembering that while he was Sherlock Holmes, he looked like a homeless ruffian underneath the used-to-be-pristine-dressing gown—and tried to walk in a straight line towards Mycroft. It would have helped to hold Mycroft's gaze, but Sherlock found he could not, it made him far too ashamed to cope with while he was this sober. Instead he focused on the awful humiliation his brother had endured to have him wake up here rather than in a jail cell. Eventually, with only two stumbles, he made it across the room and took the envelope and made out who it was addressed to.

_Mycroft Holmes_

He ticked his eyebrow up but opened the letter anyway. If Mycroft was too stupid to see that this wasn't for Sherlock then he deserved to have his letters opened. The paper inside was dated six years before.

 _Mykie, it is so good of you to write back about Sherlock. When I saw him in my little shop I thought I had gone round the bend entirely! Is it strange to say that he's grown so much, but at the same time he looks so very, very young? He certainly gave Martin such a shock—_ and the letter prattled on from there. Sherlock ran his fingers reverently over her writing, hovering uncertainly over the words she pronounced of him. But that was a different Sherlock Holmes entirely. That Sherlock was dead. Had died of grief.

"You kept this from me—she calls you _Mykie!"_ Sherlock barely remembered not to crush the letter that Mrs. Hudson had written to his brother. Mykie had been Mycroft's nickname when Sherlock had been small, and when his brother had turned eighteen he'd asked Sherlock to stop using it. But apparently Mrs. Hudson was allowed to call him such—

"Father kept you from her entirely, I would ask you to remember. At any rate, Father no longer has a say in any of our lives as of this morning because he's retired, and _you_ are getting on the next plane to Tampa after a change of clothes. Mrs. Hudson has informed me that should _Mr_. Hudson be cleared of his charges in Florida he will undoubtedly come for her with the intent to kill despite specific orders of her father-in-law to stand down. If you want her in your life, Sherlock, you should ensure that Speedy Hudson does not wiggle out of this one."

Ah. So that was why they were promoting his brother. Sherlock had a brief surge of pride for his country that _someone_ had decided to put Mycroft to work doing something that he was perfectly suited for—and that they'd done it soon enough for Mycroft to actually get something _done_ in his career. For the first time in a long time, Sherlock obeyed his brother's wishes and got on the plane to Tampa.

Sherlock had been on cocaine at the time, and his shakes and tremors were misery of the acutest kind on the plane ride. It was only because he weighed barely nine stone that he wasn't able to escape Mycroft's bodyguards—if he'd been stronger, not waiflike and ill, he would have been able to get away from them to find himself a dealer. Instead he ended up slung over a man's shoulder like an indignant sack of potatoes. It was the first and last time Sherlock chose to acknowledge the concept of irony and admit that he hated it.

The case had been open and shut for him—he'd been able to pick up all the details from a _newspaper_ , it would have been humiliating if he'd had to spend more than a few days putting everything together. The only hiccup was that he was so physically _weak_ that his energy was quickly sapped each day—he was used to having another hit and going off of that until he passed out completely. It occurred to him, as he curled up on a couch at the state police agency, that Mycroft could easily put Mrs. Hudson into a witness protection scheme somewhere—anywhere. His brother was doing this for some reason—meddling, trying to control him.

He started smoking—the detective he was aiding was a chain-smoker who was more than willing to help Sherlock out. He was helping the man put Speedy Hudson on a fast-track to death-row, so of course the detective was willing to bend over backwards to help him out. He'd also been warned of Sherlock's current drug of choice and his previous favorites, however, and a pack of cigarettes was the most Sherlock could cajole out of the man. The nicotine was abrasive to his system at first, but by the end of his three weeks—Sherlock was an expert witness, according to the prosecution—in Florida he could go through a pack a day. It helped him think, and he could do it almost wherever and whenever he wanted.

It was still expensive, and there were lots of varying levels of quality and methods of intake—most of them vile, though—and it gave the raging bull of his cocaine addiction something to butt against. He could even buy it in public, everything very top-of-the-counter and credit-cardy. There was also the added bonus that the people selling the cigarettes weren't likely to stab him.

Once he'd flown back to London he settled on more or less a pack a day, putting a cigarette in his mouth every time he thought of going after that pleasurable rush—and lighting said cigarette if he was still thinking of a hit after ten minutes. After the verdict came out for Mr. Hudson a few months later—guilty in the most inescapable degree, no appeal to be granted—Mycroft had sent a car to the dirty, anonymous flat he'd put Sherlock in. Inside it was a fairly nice change of clothes—a crimson silk shirt, a black under shirt, pressed black trousers, good shoes. _He was meeting Mrs. Hudson today._

Sherlock was gripped with a sudden feeling of complete inadequacy. This woman had given him _life_ , and what would she see today? His uncombed hair, his gaunt features, his alarming thinness. She would see him as an ungrateful wretch. Right around then is when he realized that the doors of the car were locked—and controlled from the driver's compartment. Swinging suddenly from fear to rage, Sherlock had tried to get out—hail the attention of other drivers or passengers in the cars around him, but the windows were tinted far too dark. The cheap phone in his pocket went off then.

_Change your clothes in the next six minutes and I will tell Anders that he need not carry you. When you get there, order something to eat for God's sake and EAT IT. She has been worrying constantly since I told her the details of her husband's trial._

_M_

He'd eyed the crimson shirt with the intent for it to burst into flame, but after three minutes was unsuccessful. So he changed, even putting on the damned shoes—although he did not change his socks to the ones provided, he preferred his own. When the car rolled to a stop and the doors unlocked Sherlock sat inside for a long moment, just staring out. The woman who was his mother was sitting there, in the middle of the out-door café. Her hair was still curly, but even lighter now than it had been when he'd last laid eyes on her. It looked as though a slight blond treatment had been done to her graying locks.

There was something serene and soothing about her as she fidgeted with her purse and her napkin and her silverware and her glass of water. It was this sense that she was _waiting_ for him, that she _wanted_ him in a way he'd rarely felt _wanted_ throughout his life, that gave Sherlock the impetus to get out of the car. He combed his fingers once through his hair—hair that people wouldn't gawk at him for if he was sitting next to that woman—and opened the door.

Sherlock badly wanted a cigarette as he walked up to the empty seat across from Mrs. Hudson—what was her first name? Did she even have one? Would Mycroft tell him or would she tell him?—and sat down. She had stopped breathing the instant she'd seen him, and still held her breath as he settled into the seat and folded the sleeves of his shirt away from his wrists. Just as he felt the blood rising up the pale skin of his neck, she let that breath out. A tiny smile crept onto her face.

"Sherlock," she said softly, finally, reaching across the table to touch one of his hands. He turned it over, palm up, to let her inspect his fingers.

He smiled hesitantly at her, enjoying the way she said his name.

"Mykie told me that you are getting better—are you?"

"I…"he felt the blood creep to the surface of his skin again, embarrassed at his personal failures, ashamed of his addictions. He hated how shame felt on his shoulders, it weighed him down in a way which was antithesis to how he wanted to live his life.

"Because when you're better, Sherlock, I want you to come live with me—at Baker Street. Mykie has it all arranged for you to go to the country, I think he said, but I want it to be this way. I…I just want to see you, and get to know you," she said softly, her ivory skin mirroring his in pinkness. Her cool fingers touched his fingertips. He'd given her his left hand because it was the more interesting hand by far in his opinion.

"Do you…do you still play violin?"

"Not in a long time," he said softly, eyes drinking in her every movement. Six years ago he had only barely seen her, registered her, understood her to be his mother—that interaction had been probably all of eleven seconds. That she had recognized him too was amazing, and had his chest constricting in a weirdly pleasant way.

"When you're better, I'd like to hear you play."

Sherlock swallowed hard, feeling his heart racing and his fingers almost twitching in excitement. This was better than any rush he'd ever felt from anything he'd laid his hands on in the last six years. This was far more exhilarating.

"Yes…yes. What about…"

"Martin? He works for Mykie now, I suggested it—it's why Arthur wanted…well, you know."

"Mrs. Hudson," Sherlock put his other hand on the table to sandwich hers, holding her hands firmly, "if anyone dares lay a finger on you, I will personally throw them out of a window. Repeatedly if necessary. I…I will try to do better… _get_ better." She smiled widely at that.

"Sherlock, you don't need to do better for me. I will love you in any way you'll let me. I want to someday see that young man again who wandered into my shop looking for a coffee, if you can manage that. But I will take you as you come, too. I've seen far worse and you know it, young man."

"Even if I make a habit of being a detective, like Mycroft had me do? I admit, there was something of a rush doing that…" He kept his voice soft and his eyes averted, embarrassed that playing at being a sleuth had given him pleasure he hadn't known since his last hit of coke four months ago. Besides, it was strange for someone other than Mycroft to be genuinely interested in what _Sherlock_ wanted or liked.

"Especially then, if it makes you happy. But you ought not be alone when you come, I imagine you'll still be yourself then too—need someone to look after you. Heaven knows I'll never figure out how, Sherlock," she said with another soft smile, petting the back of one of his hands with her free one. She would have been such a better mother than his own had been…He adored Mummy, of course, but she had sometimes been strained in her affections to him. Mrs. Hudson was so warm and sweet, Sherlock was half-tempted to curl up on the ground next to her chair and hug her 'round the knees, fall asleep that way too. Mrs. Hudson might cluck at him, he knew, but she ultimately won't mind. She could withstand a lot, it seemed.

She probably wouldn't even mind that he was gay.


	4. A Question of Coffee - Jollock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly spends the night with John, and after a very short interlude with Sherlock over coffee, she and the detective are cuddled up with John for the morning. Jollock ficlet promptfill originally posted over on tumblr.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For GettingOverGreta over on tumblr, the prompt being Jollock with ace!Sherlock. I did my best here, I think. Yes. Basically Sherlock is kind of clueless about relationships and the people he cares about, but he's in this relationship with Molly. He knows he can't give her everything she wants from him, so he's long ago given the go-ahead for her to seek those things from other people. She chose John, and thus the fic follows.

Sherlock's double-take when Molly came down the stairs the next morning in John's robe was something out of an old silent film, one with Buster Keaton as the lead. She'd left John upstairs to sleep, though the groggy frown he'd given her was almost enough to keep her. But Sherlock's gaping-fish-face had to be dealt with first.

Molly knew that she needed to deal with this new development between herself and Sherlock alone, not have him and John posturing at each other. Because they would—because Sherlock would have it in his head that Molly was off-limits and she knew that in his mind John had always been off limits to anyone. She knew Sherlock would blow a gasket, but still took a deep breath to steady herself as Sherlock's face settled back to his normal expression after he'd figured something out.

She hadn't quite figured out how to start when Sherlock did it for her. after he had a bit of his coffee.

"So, was he any good?"

Molly choked on the breath she'd just taken. Sherlock patted his dressing gown for a pack of cigarettes and lit one up with a pleased expression on his face. Molly cleared her throat and sat down next to him on the couch, stealing his coffee on the way.

"Yes. Very." She wasn't going to lie, not about this. Sherlock nodded to himself, his eyebrow quirked just a little bit with some silent question to himself.

"Good. It would be a shame if your alternate wasn't…you know. I'm surprised at the choice, however."

Molly leaned over a bit to cuddle up to his side. Sherlock put his arm around her shoulders, his touch light and hesitant. They'd had this conversation in theory a long time ago—that he was able to tolerate sleeping in the same bed as someone, but much more than that he was completely uncomfortable with. He'd said, with hand-on-heart earnestness, that if Molly needed to turn to others for things he couldn't give her he understood. He wanted her to be happy.

Molly however wanted _everyone_ to be happy.

"John has been lonely since we've started seeing each other, though, Sherlock."

She took a sip of his coffee, rich and unaltered. She'd always loved Sherlock's coffee. It was her favorite part of spending a morning at Baker Street. Sherlock always woke up in the early hours of the morning and made it, though he usually then came back to his room and cuddled (to the best of his ability) up to her as she slept.

Sherlock was looking at her with just a smattering of confusion. But then his face cleared a bit with understanding. Molly smiled at him over the rim of his coffee cup as she stole a little more—he never let her keep his coffee for very long, but there was something in his heart that couldn't ever deprive someone of their caffeine.

"Would—would that be—would that be—be okay?" Molly leaned forward to put the coffee cup on the table and then curled up on his lap, threading her fingers through his hair. He was looking to her for confirmation, because he was truly lost when it came to things like this.

"Yes, if it's okay with you, Sherlock. As he'd say, it's all fine."

That made him smile a bit.

"But you, us—he—"

"I explained a little of our situation to him, Sherlock. He's not the kind to sleep with his best mate's girl just because she shows up with an offer. I'll tell you, he was pretty upset with me at first—accused me of using you and of being cruel, that I'd been spending too much time around you to be _that_ unfeeling."

"Let's go wake him, then, shall we? You grab his coffee and I'll go smooth things over a bit with him. Talk it out. We'll come back down here once we work it out, okay?"

Molly nodded and pecked a kiss to his cheek before getting up. Sherlock caught her had before she got very far though, weaving their fingers together as he looked up at her.

"Is it okay? Starting the same thing with him?" She squeezed his hand with a bit of a smile, and Sherlock returned the smile with a twitching one of his own. And then he was pulling on her hand as he stood up in a rush.

"Actually, scratch the coffee. You're coming up with me."

Molly followed him up the stairs, and closed the door behind her as Sherlock pounced over to the bed. John woke up flailing from the slight doze he'd gone into after she'd left to steal Sherlock's coffee.

"Sherlock—what—what are you doing you great mad idiot—"

"Hold still John, hold _still_."

"If you're going to attack me what am I supposed to do—off!"

"No. Molly, if you'd be so kind as to get over here as well." Molly crawled onto the bed and tucked herself in at John's free side. Sherlock was at the other, leaning half-over his flatmate and holding him down by the wrists. John was better at punching things than kicking them, it was the smarter of the two choices.

Once it became clear that he was 1) safe and 2) not getting away, John's body went a bit limp as he resigned himself to whatever madness was in Sherlock's head this morning. Molly put her arm around his chest to reassure him that whatever "madness" Sherlock had planned it was at least something she was in on and therefore not something actually MAD. It was also a silent way to tell him that he wasn't in trouble with his best friend for the night he'd spent with her.

"From what Molly's said she's elaborated to you on our situation." John nodded just a little, and Molly wondered if Sherlock even _understood_ what the lick of the lips meant let alone if her boyfriend _noticed_ it at all. She certainly noticed—she'd always gotten a bit off on seeing what turned other people on, how they showed it. It was why she adored it whenever Sherlock was on a case—people always consoled her on how distant he was when he was on them, but those were actually her favorite times to be around him.

"A bit. She has…a bit."

"And would you mind terribly to be in the same situation with me? You'll have each other, too…I hadn't realized, hadn't put it together." John smiled, and laughed just a bit. His tone was incredulous, and only more so after Sherlock let him go and laid down next to him. They all knew that that was as close to an apology as Sherlock was going to give them in the situation, and John was making the best of it as he always did.

They spent the morning in John's little bed which still smelled faintly of sex from the night before. Molly curled up between John and the wall, while Sherlock held her hand and explored the new avenue of kissing John. For all that Sherlock was unimpressed by sex—it was more uselessly boring than breathing to him, he said, and as it didn't bind him to life itself he was happy to forego it altogether—he greatly enjoyed kissing. He took to it slowly with John, learning everything there was to know. No one commented on the tears which occasionally fell from John's eyes, or the disbelieving soft chuckles he gave over to occasionally.

Just as Molly was starting to feel a bit neglected, John pushed Sherlock away and turned onto his side to hold her properly. He feathered a few kisses to her face and throat, running his hands up and down her sides. Behind them Sherlock muttered that his coffee was going to be all cold when he went back downstairs and there was no point to it now it was nearly midday.

John managed to not break out in giggling, but Molly couldn't hold them in. The doctor had an erection so fierce it was probably paining him and they had entirely different ideas of "coffee" going through their minds at the moment than Sherlock. He really was completely clueless. He didn't even ask after why they were giggling at all, just continuing on with his ranting.

"Oh bother it…I'll just have to make some more," he said, getting up in a huff. Just as he reached the door, though, he proved himself worthy of the title of _detective_. "Try not to make too much noise, it might bring Mrs. Hudson running and we wouldn't want that would we?" Molly felt herself turn scarlet, and she saw the flush creep up John's neck just as rapidly.

Sherlock's grin was wicked as he shut the door and pounded down the stairs.


	5. Danger Night - Sherlock/Molly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly looks at Sherlock and she remembers. She remembers the wreck of a man she had first met years ago, and the overdose. She's not sure if they are all 'lucky' that tonight he decided to be halfway responsible with his drug-use. Partial divergent AU in that Sherlock DOES go find himself a dealer before going home, and Mycroft brings Molly in to help deal with him. Sherlollyish.

It's just after Sherlock identifies the woman in Molly's mortuary by…not her face…that Sherlock's scary brother escorts her _back_ to 221B. As if a second dose of pain so shocking it left chills in its wake hasn't been enough, the brother— _Mycroft?—_ feels a third is necessary. The large black man who sits in front of her stares ahead, answering her questions occasionally but most of the time ignoring them. Mycroft—she decides that that really is his name—sits next to her and she wishes that he wouldn't. He looks nothing like his brother, his awful, awful brother, but the air crackles without a sound or feeling like it does around Sherlock.

The flat is warm with strained false cheer as Mycroft allows her up the stairs first. Mrs. Hudson is smiling, arranging and rearranging her tea set. John is scowling, arms crossed, out the window. Mycroft settles himself into one of the chairs and helps himself to some of Mrs. Hudson's tea. Molly wishes she weren't so keyed up and upset, because the tea _does_ smell delicious.

Molly imitates John's posture, her hands instead curling around her arms to protect herself from the room. This is where Sherlock lives, where he plays his violin, where he takes the things she gives him on occasion—which isn't as often as one might think—where he sits for hours and thinks. _He had been trying,_ she knows. His frame had been tense, the lines of his muscles strained with whatever stress he was under. But just like she ought not make jokes when she's uncomfortable, he ought not try to deduce when he's feeling that way either.

"Molly, thank you." She twitches and looks up at John who is scrubbing at his eyes now with one hand. The other arm is still wrapped around his body, the hand tucked in his armpit. His girlfriend isn't here anymore, she realizes. Mycroft doesn't react, but Mrs. Hudson smiles a little and nods her head at John's words.

"My-Mycroft asked me to."

John nods, his raised arm settling back to join the other. He turns back to the window, ignoring them for another few minutes. Molly knows what this is about, though she's never been on this side of things. She knew Sherlock before he lived here. She knew him before John met him. She's known him for nearly as long as Greg Lestrade—when he'd asked for access to a morgue, to labs, Greg had called her up.

She remembers that conversation clearly.

"Molls, I'd ask next week at lunch, but this can't really wait."

"What do you need, Greg?" At the time there had been exactly two people she would ever say that to—her father, and her old mate Greg Lestrade.

"I've got this man…he…he's been helping with cases occasionally. He's just saved a man from being put away for murder and…Well, Molls, he wants access to a proper forensic lab and to a morgue."

Greg had neglected to mention that Sherlock was an addict. It hadn't taken Molly long to figure out, though. The tall man who introduced himself as Sherlock Holmes with a strong handshake was gaunt, and his nose showed evidence of a strong cocaine habit. She'd never seen his bare forearms let alone elbows, but the story his skin and hair spoke was louder than any tracklines.

She had read Dracula once and he looked like what she'd imagined Jonathon Harker to look like after his escape from the castle in Transylvania. A man within sight of death, but still too far from it.

He hadn't been beautiful back then. He had, in fact, been a mess of ugly wreckage. She hopes, now, that the Sherlock who will soon pound his way upstairs will look like he did earlier this evening. That he won't look like that ghost of a man she'd met years ago. She knows she should be mad at him, stand up for herself against his earlier cruelty, but the memories of his hollow face are too strong. Molly will give anything to never see him look that way again.

When he finally makes his way up the stairs—slowly and calmly and Molly fears for him in his deliberateness—Sherlock glances around the room once. His eyes do not flick from item to item but instead slide between them in the preternatural way they once did. The fluid, hyper-information gathering tells her that his brain is stuffed full of coke. Pain shoots through Molly as she realizes that they've failed him.

Sherlock has connections with London's irregulars—the night crews of restaurants, the homeless, the security guards, the night owls, as well as people who know _people_ —and that probably made it incredibly easy for him to score. Molly forgets her pain though as anger pushes through it. She crosses the room after his eyes pass over her without _seeing_ her and slaps him so hard that his head not only snaps away with the force but he stumbles to the side.

"You great stupid git, Sherlock!" she shouts as he regains his balance. The side of his face colors slowly where her palm met his cheek, and his eyes are _nearly_ focused on her as he turns his head forward. Her hand stings. For a single moment Molly thinks she has perhaps overreacted and is stuck between relief and horror—but then the relief flees to leave only horror as Sherlock seizes her.

The sounds of John trying to get across the room to them are mute, filtering through water almost. Mycroft stands up as well as Mrs. Hudson, hesitant to move towards them but still driven to it.

Sherlock's eyes bore into hers, and his hands on her arms are painful where his fingers dig into her flesh.

"No one denied you the comfort of half a bottle of wine, Molly, do not deny me what I choose for myself." His voice is a growling hiss. The hint of a cigarette is on his breath.

Molly remembers the night he overdosed. Greg had called her, asking her to go upstairs in the hospital to check on Sherlock. He gave her the room number, and she'd gone up. Sherlock had been unconscious, and the nurse hadn't wanted to let Molly in to see him—and then a phone started ringing at her elbow, and after she answered it she went pale. She'd hung up and motioned Molly towards the doorway of Sherlock's room.

"That's because I don't count." His fingers flex tighter and Molly winces. The pain gives her the courage to finish what she's saying, because her words have stopped everyone else in their tracks. It is just her and Sherlock now. Just like it had been before, when she'd been brought in to look after Sherlock in his darkest hours.

He had been so still in the bed, his arms bound down with straps. Another had been at his waist. Normally gaunt, Sherlock had looked skeletal. He looked inches from laying not on a hospital bed but on one of her slabs. Stored not in a room—with monitors, a tube up his nose and taped to his cheek—but in a fridge locker. Molly still hadn't been in love with him, but she had started to actually care for the wreck of a man there in that lonely room.

"Greg invited me, didn't you know? He told John, of course. And John told you and Mrs. Hudson. But I don't count to anyone who was here tonight, not really. I don't matter enough for anyone to perhaps tell me I ought to put the glass down, or take the bottle off to the sink. At least, not to anyone here earlier." His eyes are motionless, staring at her. Molly tries to lean away from him—human eyes constantly flick and move, and he can stare without such motion and it is unnerving—but Sherlock jerks her an inch towards himself instead. She will have bruises tomorrow—maybe even tonight—and Molly knows that she should be mad at him. That she shouldn't care for a man who has ever hurt her, ever restrained her like this.

"Everyone left me to my half bottle of wine," how kind of him to round down for once in his life, "Sherlock because I don't have anyone. No one who cares how I cope. But we all care about you, which is why you aren't left to deal with your pain as you see fit."

She wonders how he manages to keep his grip so viciously tight—most men's hands would have cramped by now, or begun to relax subtly. Perhaps it is the drug coursing through his blood, perhaps it is just how he is by nature. Since she's got his attention, she risks asking him—a risk because probably it is obvious to himself, or his scary brother, and Sherlock is especially prickly when he's high. She's never, ever, seen him hit someone out of the blue but she's also never seen him willingly touch someone this long either. Molly hopes that Sherlock will remain only verbally combative, because she knows how strong he is when he's like this.

"How much did you have?"

"You mean do I plan on getting more." She can't argue, so she nods.

The blood rushing through the muscles on her left arm is painful as he lifts his right hand to stroke her hair back behind her ear. His fingers curl briefly there, pressing meaningfully down on her pulse and following it down her neck. Greg had told her once that Sherlock was particularly tactile when he was out of it like this, and her detective friend had wondered what he got out of it.

Sherlock's gray eyes—really truly gray, though occasionally they look green—aren't on hers anymore. They are tracing every movement of his free hand, which is moving up her throat once again. His fingers slide into the hair just behind her ear and hold her head still. His eyes also slide, away from his hand to look into her own once more.

"No." Her other arm rushes with blood now as he brings his left hand to rest against her throat. His thumb covers her pulsepoint, the fingers wrapped around the back of her neck. Molly knows then that he's going to kiss her. Maybe not this instant, but the cocaine will make him do it soon enough before the high wears off. She doesn't want him to kiss her, though. Not like this, not when he's not himself and certainly not after the string of insults he'd leveled at her earlier.

"Sherlock, let her be—"

"Shut up John." Sherlock's eyes don't move as he reprimands his flatmate.

His scary older brother says nothing other than murmur that the problem seems to have worked itself out. He leaves quickly after that, forcing Mrs. Hudson down the stairs to her own flat. John is standing somewhere she can't see him, and she can't turn her head because of Sherlock—and the reminder of his terrible strength at the moment. Those hands which had bruised her arms are at her neck now.

"Molly and I are going to go to my room, John, and wait for my body to come down. Shouldn't be longer than twenty minutes until that happens. Do not come in unless Molly yells for you." Molly gulps and Sherlock's eyes follow the motion. His hands fall out of her hair and away from her face, one going behind her to lead her away from the living room. The door behind them snaps shut, louder inside the room now than it was from the outside earlier.

He sits her down on his bed and then turns to open his window. He digs out a pack of cigarettes and lights one up. Then a second. A third and fourth, and finally just minutes after he started he stubs out a fifth. She hates the brand he normally smokes, being much more familiar and comfortable with the one her father preferred when he was alive—the same brand as the one Sherlock was just chaining up with. Trust Sherlock Holmes to be one step ahead of all of them as usual.

He stands front of her and reaches down to take one of her hands. He inspects it, seeing probably every old scar and botched nail-lacquer. He does the same with the other hand, with each finger, but holds her hand gently with his own when he finishes. His thumb slides in a repetitive pattern on the inside of her wrist.

"I did four bumps, earlier." She stares up at him, vaguely aware of what he means by that. She's never had the luxury of a scary older brother being there to smooth everything over for her—she's never gotten high the ways he's gotten high. Molly prefers alcohol to sooth her feathers on bad days. Sherlock drops her hand and goes around the bed to curl up behind where she sits.

"Molly…" she twists around a little to look down at him, and has to resist putting her fingers through his hair to comfort him somehow. Her friend David often says that she loves an illusion, the perfect vision she has of Sherlock Holmes—David doesn't know about the night she'd sat with Sherlock after his overdose—and that she can't _really_ be in love with him. David is wrong, Molly knows.

"Molly tomorrow you and I are going to have a talk. A long, tedious one. But tonight will you lay down, right here, and hold me? I can manage to keep just to shivering if you do, I think. Else I might start shaking, or scratching when it starts to itch." Molly smiles and wants to shake her head but doesn't. She lays down next to him and lets his arms close around her once again. His touch is more careful this time, though, far different from the roughing up he'd given her out in the living room.

"What are we going to talk about, Sherlock?" He is throwing off heat like a furnace, not his usual fare. Sherlock wears his coat and scarf everywhere because he is just very slightly anemic and needs to keep whatever warmth he can get.

"About the fact that I believe I might have been viciously tricked. We're going to talk about people who lie. About the woman in the morgue who might not be the woman I said she was, because the woman I said she was is a liar and a thief and has made me a liar too. About how I lied to my brother tonight, and how that _hurts_ and how I hate that it hurts." His arms tighten around her, and Molly feels his lips graze her forehead.

"We're also going to talk about how I lied to everyone that you, Molly Hooper, have anything that needs _compensating_ for." She still doesn't want him to kiss her, but she lets him. It's not the invasive, alien kiss she has been expecting since she realized he was going to do it, either. Sherlock kisses her with just a press of his mouth to hers, and she somehow feels his eyelashes flutter closed.

Molly knows, and has known for as long as she's been in love with this awful man, that this is the kind of person she can expect. She knew that earlier today, wrapping presents, that Sherlock Holmes is like a hedgehog covered in needles. She knows that he is a former addict, and she knows that he has beaten his cocaine addiction—for the most part—with new addictions to cigarettes and deductions.

She hopes that when he is once again right in the head, tomorrow by his estimate, he will be sorry for the bruises which are rising on her arms. Molly hopes that Sherlock will remember that she held him through his trembling, that she answered his requests for another line of coke with kisses instead of the drug, that she brought his face down to press into her neck as he wept and carded her fingers through his hair. She's not sure that he will, but she still hopes.


	6. Morning Light - Mycroft/Molly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two people find each other, sweetly supporting one another and understanding. Mycroft Holmes and Molly Hooper.

Sherlock knew the reason why no bullet had even been headed for Molly. Not even Jim Moriarty was brave enough to attempt the life of Molly Hooper—not on any merit of her own in Moriarty's world, really, but because she was seeing Mycroft Holmes. No one was stupid enough to truly provoke that man.

It didn't _really_ matter in the end, because he and Mycroft had worked this out months ago. Sherlock had asked his elder brother to let Moriarty out of his cage, and to allow him to lead the madman on a merry chase. They'd even planned the way Moriarty would attempt to best Sherlock, to ruin him. It involved faking his own death, to everyone who knew and loved him.

Towards the end, he had been terribly sad to leave John in such darkness—to leave everyone in such darkness, but it had to be done. Not even Molly, his potential sister-in-law, knew the full truth of everything. Sure, she helped him fake his death, yes, but she wasn't entrusted with the plan.

Nonetheless, she had stumbled on his grief at leaving John to fend for himself—saying that he looked sad when he didn't think John was watching. Sherlock was very lucky that Molly was seeing his real arch-enemy rather than Jim Moriarty who only fashioned himself as such. She could have used that information against him, the sad and furtive looks at the doctor's back, but Molly was inclined to be kind towards him.

The romance between Molly and Mycroft was sweet—if Sherlock was going to use the word for anyone, he would use it for them—and he was glad he'd started it. Well, sort of. He was the reason their lives had intersected, and he was glad that Molly had found a man to place her affections on. A man who would return them, at least. Sherlock also had a high standard for who he would allow to have Molly Hooper—the person had to be at least as smart as him, and as equally or better able to protect her if it came to it.

Molly had managed to find just the man, and for that Sherlock was glad.


	7. Arguments, Squabbles, and Having Three Parents - Jollock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anita Hooper has a Mummy, and a Daddy, and then there's Father over there with his violin. Growing up in 221B was certainly never boring. Jollockbaby's POV of her family, filed under Molly/Sherlock because of reasons.

"Clarinet."

"Violin."

"Clarinet."

"Violin."

Anita Hooper watched as her Father and her Daddy argued in a bizarre manner composed mostly of those words—Violin, Clarinet—and eyebrow raises and shoulder squarings. She rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet, bumping Mummy's knees as she did so until Mummy's hand came down on her shoulder to quiet her. She didn't really care what Father and Daddy decided on, just that they did soon—she and Hamish needed their lunch! And then there was her older sister Cathy who needed to be picked up from judo, and Father had to go see Uncle Greg soon because he was getting a lot-a lot of text messages and that always meant Uncle Greg was coming for a visit.

"Sherlock, John…" Mummy knew that all these things needed to get done as well.

It would be many years before Anita would think to question the dynamics her parents had, or understand the looks that her teachers would give her and her siblings. That there was a reason that Cathy could look as eerie as Father, or why Hamish looked like Daddy. That there was a reason she learned piano and not clarinet _or_ violin.

"Cambridge."

"Study abroad."

"Cambridge."

"Study Abroad."

Father wanted adventure, but Daddy wanted the best for her. She knew that as she tried to tune out her parents and their arguing—well, fussing more like. In the psychology class she'd taken they'd covered relationships, how threesomes rarely worked out in the long term—and she'd thought of her parents, and how they were the kind of people to force such a well-to-do textbook into using the world _rarely_. To say they never worked out would be to invalidate what Mummy had with Daddy and Father.

Because without Mummy, Daddy and Father would have self-destructed long ago in Anita's opinion. She didn't often share it—it horrified poor Cathy, and it was met with a condescending sniff from Hamish—but she knew that Mummy shared her views. Mummy was there to keep their bickering to a minimum.

She and Cathy shared the upstairs room that had once belonged to Daddy, while Mummy slept—usually—in what had been Papa's old room. Papa and Daddy slept downstairs in 221C, and Hamish slept in the second bedroom down there. But those are the assigned bedrooms—with a family as cobbled together as theirs, there was plenty of bed-switching.

Daddy said that it appealed to Father's inner, repressed bohemian. Mummy said it was just easier. Father would smile and sit in his chair with his violin at his neck.

Just about the only time her Daddy and her Father agreed on whose course of action to follow regarding Anita was on her wedding day. She barely kept the tears in check as each of them took one of her hands and placed it in the crook of his arm—they'd agreed, nearly instantly, which of them would walk her down the aisle. Both of them would, of course.

But that didn't mark the end of their squabbles, not by a long-shot.

"John."

"Sherlock."

"John."

"Sherlock."

They were vying for whose name ought to be given as a middle name to their first grandson while their son-in-law was off getting a coffee.

"Michael."

Anita turned her attention up to her mother for the first time—her focus had been on Grayson, who was by far the most beautiful precious thing she had ever seen. Mummy was smiling in that sweet way which resembled Father's awkward smiles. Daddy was, really truly, much better at smiling than Mummy or Father.

"Michael because without your Uncle Mike Stamford, your father would have never met me, and would never have met your dad. I know he's been gone for a while, but this could be like him coming back to us, right?"

Father's mouth worked in that worrying manner it did when he was about to spout something particularly atheistic. Cathy, Anita, and Hamish had been raised as proper thinkers—some of her earliest memories were of Father carefully explaining monographs by Carl Sagan or Richard Dawkins as bedtime stories—but there were limits. Surely on the day of little Grayson _Michael's_ birth her Father could tolerate a bit of superstition?

"I like it," she said, cuddling her baby to her a little closer, knowing that she'd managed to effectively shut them up.


	8. Fever Dreams - Sherlock/Molly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two times Sherlock diagnosed Molly's fever with a kiss, and one time she diagnosed his. Prompt from OrangeSherbert06 over on tumblr, originally posted there too.

Molly always came in for Sherlock, because he called her when he wanted her to come in. Sherlock hardly ever texted her—he had her text him quite often, but he always called or found her in person. There was one memorable night where she hadn't answered her phone—she'd been deeply asleep in the midst of what she thought was a bad cold—and he'd broken into her flat to find her. He'd softly called her name in the darkness of her living room, getting a bit louder as he went to her room.

"Sherlock, you let all the cold air in," she'd whined when he came into her room, tucking herself deeper into her comforter to hide from the 'cold' and from the light he flicked on. The weight at the side of her bed was odd, as were the hands which gently pried her from her little cocoon. Molly shivered and moaned out a protest as Sherlock brought her up to lean on her headboard, and she'd sniffled as pathetically as she could to try and generate some pity for herself in his questioning blue eyes.

Sherlock had taken off his gloves and took her pulse, leaning in with the same motion to lay his lips on her forehead for a moment. Molly had stilled in shock, trying to curb her shivers in the icy room as well as those from where Sherlock touched her. When he leaned back slightly, he put his forehead against hers.

"I didn't let all the cold air in, Molly, you have a fever. Do you have anything that you like to take to alleviate the symptoms?"

He hadn't had her come in that night, instead sitting at her side on the edge of her bed and supervising her sleep and medicine regimen. Molly had been woken at dutiful four hour intervals for her pills, and before he'd left in the morning he had made her a rich chicken broth and made sure she ate it. The only 'not good' thing he'd done was left the kettle on as a sort of alarm clock before he'd gone.

Things had changed a bit when he'd gotten a flatmate, but not by much. Sherlock still called her or found her if he needed her, but she was less of a sounding board now than she had been. He had his other friend now, and that was okay with Molly. She was honestly quite happy that Sherlock had found someone to be _real_ friends with, because while they were friendly to one another she was sure that Sherlock didn't consider her his friend.

But still, he did things that only close friends might do for one another—she wouldn't let herself assume that he was at all _interested_ in her because she _knew_ him—like when he escorted her home early one night. She'd been fighting off a cold for more than a week, which wasn't fair because it was _summer,_ and Sherlock had wrapped her up in the coat he'd worn to the lab. The heavy thing wasn't something to be worn during the day, but Sherlock had arrived at the lab at half four in the morning and had needed it at the time. In the cab he had the driver turn the heat way up and let Molly doze as she would—it was rush hour and it would take a goodly long time to get to her flat. She'd thought that until she looked up at where he'd shuffled them out of the cab.

"Sherlock, you took us to your flat."

"Indeed. You're in need of a doctor with that burgeoning pneumonia, and I know just the man."

Molly had scoffed, cuddling deeper into his coat, and tried to remember which way it was to her house or to the main road to catch a cab. Sherlock had rolled his eyes in response, finding her elbows in the great swath of fabric that was his greatcoat and bringing her close. His lips found her forehead, pressing what could only be a kiss there for several seconds longer than Molly thought necessary.

"You'll have the fever by tomorrow morning, best to nip it in the bud. Don't want to ruin your summer with being stuck in hospital."

She _must_ have been sick because she had a bit of grump to get out at him.

"I'm always stuck in hospital— _I work at one_ , Sherlock."

"Well this is different and you know it. Come up, I texted John to tell him you were coming."

She'd woken up the next morning—John had listened to her lungs and said that without an x-ray he couldn't be one hundred percent about it, but yes, she had pneumonia and that he'd get her the prescriptions she needed in the morning—very warm. The room around her was icy, but where she was under the blankets she was gloriously warm. It was almost as if she had a huge heater installed along her whole body—she was in bed.

She was at Sherlock's and in bed.

And there was a _heater_ behind her.

Molly had dared to brave the icy air around herself and turned to look over her shoulder—having found herself fairly well contained by long, lanky arms—at Sherlock Holmes who was sleeping soundly, wrapped around her to the best of his ability. It took some doing, but she managed to turn over enough to press her face against his chest. His collarbone was a nice place to put her poor nose so that it didn't freeze in the cold of his flat.

"John left about a half hour ago to get your medications. I think he might have even called Mycroft to pull some strings," Sherlock said—apparently not as asleep as she'd thought—flexing his arms to hold her tighter. Molly nodded just a bit and listened to his breathing. And then she pushed away from Sherlock just enough to scoot up a foot or so and laid a kiss on his forehead.

"I think that you're going to get ill, Sherlock." She reached up to comb her fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp just the tiniest bit with her nails.

"Mm, will have gotten it from you. Did last time."

"Kissing people to diagnose fevers is rubbish, by the way."

His blue eyes popped open and sought hers.

"Who says I was diagnosing a fever when I did it?"


	9. The Army Doctor - John/Sherlock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John's seen a lot of violent deaths, and he's touched a lot of dead bodies in his day. He knows the difference between just-died and died-yesterday and the body on the pavement had been dead far longer than it should have been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I think this is why John holds out hope, why he asks for one more miracle. Because he knows, and he knows well enough to not let on.

John knew that Sherlock wasn't dead. Couldn't possibly, unless he'd been dead for hours before he'd jumped and that was just impossible. It was implausible that someone could have survived that fall, but it was impossible that the body he'd seen and touched was his flatmate and friend. His best friend with his brilliant mind and his carefully concealed humanity.

When he'd been in Afghanistan they'd had a three day battle over a small village, and once things had settled down—the people they'd been fighting just ghosted away in the night, leaving the village empty and the people there dead—John had gone in with some other doctors and medics, looking for survivors. He'd touched many dead bodies that day, bodies which had cooled over-night after their deaths. In his other work with the unit John had also touched many bodies of men who'd just recently died.

The body smashed on the pavement outside of Bart's was most definitely dead, but it had been dead for hours. It was stone-cold, the flesh stiff. If it had been Sherlock it would have been at least a little warm—he was wearing his coat, after all—and the skin would have been springy with just-departed-life. John knew he'd been disoriented from when the bicyclist had hit him, but he believed he could tell a long-dead body from a freshly-deceased one.

Sherlock must have done it for a reason, though, tried to trick John—so John played along. It wasn't hard. His best friend was still gone amid horrific circumstances to where John knew not, and the knowledge that Sherlock wasn't dead meant it was too painful to go to Baker Street anymore. He acted like Sherlock was dead because he had a hunch that perhaps Sherlock's 'suicide' had had to do with Moriarty. The madman had probably threatened to kill those Sherlock was close to, the people he cared for despite his ardent efforts otherwise. Perhaps that had been the deal—die so that they might live.

But Sherlock had outsmarted him, because Sherlock was fantastic and amazing at problem solving.

John knew this because Sherlock wasn't dead, couldn't possibly.


	10. Holmes, Sherlock Holmes - Sherlock/Molly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly is on a Bond kick, and Sherlock (who is as near as James Bond as many can be) is feeling a little jealous. He wants to tell her, but Mummy made him swear not to tell a soul. Extension of my promptfill over on tumblr.

The position was called M because it was in honor of the three most famous people who had held it over the years—Melvin, Martha, and Michael—and it was just coincidence that Martha's successor was named Mycroft.

Sherlock and his brother had been dragged into the business _by_ their mother, each of them working more as domestic Bonds than anything else. Sherlock was too flashy and Mycroft sometimes moved too slowly to work at the international level. The true bearers of the title "Bond, James Bond," worked far-afield most often. All of the high-tech gadgets that the rest of the world used today had been developed under the strictest secrecy for use of the British Bond program and by the Cross and Ryan programs in America decades ago.

The thing is, Bonds, Crosses, and Ryans weren't allowed to talk about their service time. If it came out of course—in a sudden gunfight as enemies of the state tried to exact revenge on a particular agent—then it could be explained. Mostly because it _had_ to be explained then. Mummy had made him promise to never tell another soul, when she'd forced him out of the program in his mid-twenties—his drug addiction had been permissible when he'd had it under control—and so far he had made good on the promise.

When Mummy retired and Mycroft was selected to replace her, Mycroft had allowed him to come back on a freelance basis—he had gotten clean of the drugs in that time, and found ways to occupy himself. He'd found that he truly enjoyed forensic science, and crime solving wasn't all that different from solving who-stole-the-missile-plans or where-is-the-headquarters-of-this-year's-evil-organization. Sherlock had enjoyed settling himself into a life where he could choose what _he_ wanted to do rather than being given orders.

St. Bart's had everything he needed—well appointed labs, a mortuary, and two pathologists who served differing purposes. Mike Stamford let him in whenever he could and talked endlessly about an old medical school chum who would get on with Sherlock famously. Molly Hooper was sweet and coddled him if he looked pathetic enough—just the opposite of the kind of woman Bonds normally met, and just the kind of woman to never get herself or him killed.

Eventually Mike had introduced him to John Watson, and the pathologist had certainly been correct. He hadn't gotten along with anyone this well in ages, let alone felt the strings of fast friendship between them. John knew how it felt to be put out to pasture for something fixable being deemed _un_ fixable, and that had made all the difference.

That left Molly. Sherlock had never been very good at forming lasting relationships, especially with women. It came with the territory of being a Bond—women were often looked at, in the field, as a means to an end. He'd been trained since his mid-teens to know how to smile and glance, how to compliment and inflect his tone, all to achieve the best results. To Sherlock's great frustration, he fell back on that training more often than not—which was all well and good when you never saw the woman again, but _not_ so well and good when the woman was someone you had a particular fancy to.

With John's help he'd figured it out—though Molly had been suspicious of him for the first eight months of their relationship. Sherlock tamped down on any offense which rose—how could she _possibly_ think he was insincere?—because he did deserve it. He didn't like realizing he deserved things like mistrust, but here he had only himself to blame. He wanted to defend himself, somehow.

And then Molly had started getting excited about the new Bond movie—most of them being based on old field reports by Bonds through the sixties and eighties. She was into both the idea of Bond as well as the man they had playing him this time around. The actor was well-proportioned and might have fit quite well at Molly's side, and this ignited a spark of jealousy in Sherlock. He liked being tall, was used to being tall, but compared to the actor he knew he seemed a bit stretched out and gawky.

He deeply wanted to tell Molly that Bonds didn't look like that—they didn't look all Hollywood, they looked like himself and Mycroft and the bloke down the street and the boy next door and sometimes even _John_. And they didn't wear tuxedos, they wore English suits if they wore formalwear at all. So Sherlock started looking for ways to subtly tell Molly that if she wanted James Bond, she didn't have to look any further than himself.

Sherlock tried to do James Bond kinds of things for Molly—he brushed up on his one-liners, wincing as he tried to do the punny ones with a serious face. He quietly made sure Molly was around whenever Mycroft tried to foist a mission on him, dropping words and hints of just what he was up to. It went over her head as she busily planned a night out to watch the new Bond movie—Sherlock had started to give up by then, too, sulking that Molly preferred a glamourized, tanned, tuxedoed Bond rather than the real thing.

Molly came 'round to it in her own way though.

She was halfway through explaining why _he_ would like to see the Bond movie—solving mysteries, finding things, covert operations and quick bits of fighting—when in the midst of a sentence her mouth dropped open. Sherlock had been tuned out just a bit, so it was the sudden silence which had him looking over to where she was cleaning up the plates from dinner (he had procured several skinned hedgehogs and had been curious to how they tasted in a goulash…he didn't tell Molly what he'd made, of course). He got up from his chair, crossing the room in just a few strides.

"You're—you're—Sherlock, you're—" Molly wasn't able to finish the sentence because Sherlock kissed her. He knew that Mummy wasn't watching him anymore, but it was better that the revelation that he was (or used to be) James Bond be kept a bit quiet. He didn't want the lecture from Mycroft about never revealing a secret identity unless strictly necessary. He _was_ however, looking forward to Molly being extra cuddly towards him whenever she did manage to drag him to that film.


	11. Observational Skills  - John/Sherlock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock evaluated Harry's entire life from John's phone and life, but didn't do the same to John himself. He knew that John wouldn't be ready to hear what Sherlock saw for a while yet, despite the news being very good for both of them. If only Mrs. Hudson hadn't made him so skittish with the suggestion of a single bedroom...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to Tutaria, (tuh-tah-ria) who ships Johnlock like mad. Just a short little thing, because I noticed that while Sherlock says that girlfriends aren't really his area, he doesn't exactly say that boyfriends aren't either. He just says that he's not interested in relationshipping. It feels like a betrayal to my Sherlock OTP to say that, but whatevs.
> 
> So yeah, this is for you Tutaria because I know it will make you happy.

This one was the one.

This man, this stupidly simple and broken doctor was the one.

He had to be.

Sherlock felt it. He felt it in John Watson's over-compensated grip in their handshake. Military background, unfriendly to hostile environment for sexual divergence from reproductive norms, large machismo factors pressuring towards strong manliness over gentler sensitivity. Bluffing.

Sherlock saw it. He saw it in the appraising and appreciative glance John Watson spared him when he first entered the lab. Automatic sweep of room looking for potential mates, discerning eye towards height and masculinity, quick switch of focus after appraisal is made and approved of. Hiding.

Sherlock heard it. He heard it in the self-conscious panic in John Watson's voice when Mrs. Hudson suggested they might need only one bedroom. Nervous of suggested relationship, irrationally defensive against assumptions made by an older, overly accepting woman. Denial.

Sherlock tasted it. He tasted it in the perfect tea that John Watson made later that night. Personal life is formed from precision in execution, cannot slip even a moment out of fear of rejection or mockery, cannot turn it off even for a second while making tea. No, not denial—knows full well, yet unwilling to admit it aloud just yet.

If Sherlock hadn't already been fully convinced that John Watson was the man of his dreams, the stilted conversation at Angelo's would have given him everything he needed. But John would need time, he concluded from the evidence, and so while Sherlock came out to him easily and openly— _not really my area—_ he also put John off the trail. He let his new flatmate relax, knowing there would be time enough to have John fall in love but at the moment there was the case and this pressed far more heavily on Sherlock than the fact that Mike Stamford had stumbled on probably the only man in existence who could love Sherlock Holmes the way he wanted to be loved.

He reckoned it would be about four months before he convinced John that they really did only need one bedroom.


	12. What Girlfriends Do - Sherlock/Molly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Is that what girlfriends do? Feed you up?" minific inspired by mannerisms in the unaired pilot with a lovely Sherlollyish twist. Utter fluff, complete.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Sherlock is inspired by the sassy & emotional Sherlock from the unaired pilot. I also like to think that he's the smart Sherlock, because he actually kind of was what I'd always imagined Sherlock as being when I read the stories as a kid. Yes, the pilot ruined the rest of the series for me, save for S2.2...
> 
> It's an AU based around Sassysmartlock's remarks at Angelo's. Is that what girlfriends do? Feed you up?
> 
> Answer: yes. Yes exactly.

_"Ah, coffee! Thank you, Molly."_

His new flatmate had concealed much of his own life while mysteriously knowing quite a lot about John's. He hadn't even known the man's name, Sherlock Holmes, until he was just nearly out the door.

He reminded John a little of an automaton, a robot made to be curiously human but still _missing_ something. It was in this way that John also _missed_ something in trying to assess this person he believed to be slightly non-human—by making assumptions rather than taking assessments.

He missed the warm greeting given to the woman, and the genuine confusion in his voice about her make-up, and his pleasant thank-you. He missed the distance between Stamford and Sherlock and the closeness between the man and the woman who brought him coffee. He missed the disinterest in Mr. Holmes' greeting and interaction with Stamford. The fact that a man noticed a woman's makeup went completely over John's head. And all of that was just the obvious stuff, the things anyone could have noticed.

But because he missed all of these things, he was deeply surprised when the woman from the hospital was also at _Sherlock's_ flat the next evening. Although he _did_ notice that she was wearing lipstick as his flatmate introduced her.

"John Watson, this is my girlfriend Molly. Off-limits, Mr. War Veteran. She's a lab-tech at St. Bart's—Mike introduced us," Sherlock managed to say before he started in on the flat itself, saying that he'd loved it too much, he'd had to move in immediately. John was suddenly self-conscious and nervous—why did a man with a girlfriend need a flatmate when he could probably move in with the woman in question?

" _Sherlock_ ," Molly whispered, laying a hand briefly on the dark haired man's shoulder before going to the kitchen to make tea. And that is when John _really_ missed everything. He didn't see that Sherlock immediately stilled when Molly touched him, as though her touch grounded him suddenly and completely. He didn't see that Molly knew where the cups for the tea were but not the tea itself. He failed to notice that Sherlock omitted Molly's surname. He didn't remember the interaction yesterday in any detail whatsoever other than it had happened so he didn't recall the things he should have—the warmth in Sherlock's greeting was surprised in its nature which indicated a newer relationship but the genuine thanks coming from his lips revealed a relationship out of its infancy. He didn't remember seeing the twist of Molly's hands after giving Sherlock the coffee, the right grabbing at the fingers and knuckles of the left, and therefore couldn't make the conclusion that Molly was either afraid of marriage or living in hopes of it.

Instead, John was looking around the flat and trying to appraise why Sherlock Holmes needed a flatmate when he had a perfectly good girlfriend. He was looking, but not seeing.

"Sherlock, did you eat at all today?"

"Not a thing," Sherlock answered her before turning to John and starting a short tour of the flat. "Now, with your cane and your limp, I would offer you the bedroom down here but I do fear that limp of yours is most definitely psychosomatic and so you'll be upstairs in the other bedroom. It's bigger anyway, and I like small rooms. Plenty of closing doors and thick, old walls, too, so I'll never hear you or your conquests in a million years and you won't be as put-off by the violin then too."

"And yesterday?" Molly asked Sherlock paused for breath. The dark haired man blinked owlishly towards the kitchen, genuinely perplexed for a moment before he answered.

"Just the coffee you gave me—and it _did_ have sugar in it, I shouldn't have to remind you. Mrs. Hudson gave me some biscuits on Monday, though, I'll be fine until morning."

And _this_ is what John noticed. He hobbled closer to his potential flatmate and stared up into his eyes, bewildered and slightly amazed.

"Wait—are you saying you haven't eaten in two days?"

"This is why he needs a flatmate, Dr. Watson," Molly called out from the kitchen, clanking pans out of the cupboards and putting them on the stove to boil. Once she had everything sorted, she wiped her hands on a towel and came back into the living room with a tiny smile.

"I can't be over here all the time to feed him up and make sure that he doesn't starve himself too badly," she said to John as she put a hand on Sherlock's arm. "And Sherlock, we agreed! No more than forty hours without—"

"Was on a case on Monday night and all of yesterday, Molly, eating would have slowed me down," Sherlock said with a smile just as the doorbell rang. His smile, John was disturbed to find, turned gleefully feral.

"And that would be Lestrade—been a fifth suicide, I'd say. Got to be going, Molly, don't wait up alright? If you want me to eat you'd best be here in the morning—" the doorbell rang again, this time twice.

"Sherlock! I have work tomorrow, I can't possibly!" John could see _quite_ a domestic brewing and cleared his throat to get their attention. The rent might be low here at 221B, but he was starting to think that if he lived here, he would have it on very hard terms. But somehow this sounded lovely—interesting and exciting in a way his life hadn't been since the war. Yes, he could definitely get into this. The doorbell went again.

"I could go with him and make sure he eats at some point tonight, if you'd like?" Sherlock frowned a little as though he'd been betrayed in the worst way, but Molly broke out into a smile.

"Well, I'll just put supper away then after I let Greg in, shall I?"


	13. Nerves of Steel - Sherlock/Molly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock has taken a leave from his work at Cambridge to watch over his wife and son. His wife Molly is prone to hysteria, and his son is just eleven and doesn't quite understand how much care must be taken in dealing with Molly. Sherlock, however, does. AU, Onset of WWI!Sherlock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm frowning at myself for having been able to write this so feel free to frown at me for having written this. I'm beginning to think that I write Misogynist!Misguided!Creeper!Sherlock far, far too well or that I've got some sort of sick attachment to it because I can't seem to stop accidentally writing things like this.
> 
> This fic has a first-draft posting over on the silberias tumblr blog, and was inspired by a photoset over there. It's all posted there, the photos and such, so feel free to check it out. The photos are of Lou Brealey and Whatshisface in pre-WWI period clothing (I don't know what she's in, but Whatshisface is in that Parade's End thing that broke in the last week or so). They're both quite blonde, as is their kid, and yes. Also, the farther back in time you take your Sherlock AU, the more of a misogynistic bastard he is going to be right up until you get back to the original Doyle's Sherlock in which case he's a right ass.
> 
> Also I made him a physicist because a bunch of physicist-y things went down between 1900 and 1915. Yes.

"Mummy says there's absolutely no chance of you going off to the war."

Sherlock went to sit next to his son, looking out the window—sighting along to where the boy's eyes were resting. Molly was outside in the garden, supervising the picking of the early fall apples. Her hands were fluttering at her waist, wanting to help but knowing it was against the doctor's orders—she was at her wit's end already, having broken the 'rules' by not confining herself to her rooms. His brave little Molly, always pushing herself to the edges of her comfort zones.

"Your mother suffers from easily aggravated nerves, Brannick, it helps her to believe such inanities. She's also in a delicate condition, with the baby. All that aside, I do not put much stock that I'll be called up. I've a bad leg, remember."

Sherlock would be lying if he said he wasn't hoping for another son to match his eleven year old. Brannick had inherited the yellow-gold of Molly's hair, and her tipped nose. His wife's brown eyes had not made it into their son, though. He was happy to try again, though, just as Molly was happy to have fallen pregnant again. They were lucky, though that they differed in age. She was six years his junior, just seventeen when they'd married twelve years ago. It was easier for her now than it would be in a few years to carry another child.

"Mummy is happier when you're around. Whenever you leave to Cambridge for the Autumn Term she is very skittish—the only people she'll see for several days after are her cousin Mrs. Stamford and Grandmere."

There was just the slightest crack in Brannick's voice as he spoke—Sherlock's lips quirked into a bit of a smile, thinking that soon enough his son would be a tall and striking young man just as he himself had been. And he would grow up with a healthy sense of responsibility, just as Sherlock's elder brother had. There was something quite positive to be said for having large age gaps between children.

"Why do you think I've transferred most of my research here? Your mother requires constant care—a curious affliction women of our rank seem to share is a proclivity towards extreme delicacy. I don't trust a doctor to know and correctly treat my wife's changes in mood and attitude, however, so I spend as much time as possible here with her."

He had believed the doctors on one thing, though. That Molly's nerves might worsen after having a second child. That she might begin to suffer from hysteria, and could possibly harm one or both of their children. Sherlock didn't want to believe that his sweet wife was capable of it, but he erred on the side of caution. He had asked his brother to arrange an emergency sabbatical—though he'd told Molly that it was a regular one. She did not need the extra stress of thinking that she was causing trouble or difficulty for anyone.

"She always says there's nothing wrong with her though, Father." Sherlock smiled, putting one hand on his son's shoulder, pointing out the window with the other.

"Do you see her though?" The afternoon light made Molly light up like an angel, albeit an angel who was seven months pregnant and twitchy.

"Savior of my soul she might be; and a sweet and loving mother to you—do you not see that there IS something amiss there?" From there he picked apart Molly's every nervous twitch and giggle, every trembling allowance. He made it quite clear how lucky his wife was that he'd suffered a severe accident in his teens which had nearly lamed him. Otherwise, he knew that he might well be prevailed upon to join the war effort. If he left he would be leaving his not even teenaged son in charge of the household, to look after Molly when she was most likely to devolve into complete hysterics. Sherlock would never leave such a task to so young a boy, not after his own father had left Mycroft with the same task years ago.

* * *

Later that evening he retired to his study, to reflect and to do calculations—there were some very promising papers by a young Frenchman named Brillouin, along with some topics floated by Arnold Sommerfeld to support Einstein's work. He'd actually gotten some sad news that Brillouin was planning on serving in this stupid war—Sherlock knew about war. Several of his closest friends had gone away to fight the Boers in South Africa—those that had come back had never been the same. Their minds, so brilliant and so very ALIVE at University, were deadened by the horrors they'd seen of men killing one another.

He didn't move when he heard Molly let herself in, and only mumbled his thanks when she poured him a drink and put it to the side of his papers. She didn't speak for a few moments, instead straightening his desk a bit for him. He did see the tiny smile on her face as she smoothed one hand down the round curve of her abdomen—though she must have seen him looking, because her smile melted away into a slight frown.

"I can't stand the ideas that you put into his head sometimes Sherlock."

"I'm positive I don't know what you mean, Molly."

She took one of his hands away from the steeple he'd made under his chin, putting it against her distended stomach. Even through the layers of her clothing, it warmed his palm. Sherlock wondered what Brannick had done in the last few hours to give away what they'd spoken of—he would have to talk to the boy about privacy and things said in confidence.

"I'm not defenseless, or stupid. You treat me like I don't count in my own life sometimes. And you're teaching him to do the same to some woman who will look into his eyes and fall forever like I did." Here they were. He'd been waiting for them to make an appearance. Her nerves, the chronic condition she'd suffered from for most of their marriage if not their entire acquaintance.

"Molly, listen to what you're saying compared to the truth of the matter. You're married to a physicist, you're hardly stupid else I wouldn't have had the patience to court you. You hold our family together, which I think more than counts in ALL of our lives." With that he stood up, leaning on his cane, and gently kissed her cheek. The doctors he'd consulted said to sooth her as best he could with words, or marital activities. If allowed to run wild, her nervous condition might begin causing her migraines and muscle pains so severe that she might require frequent doses of laudanum. Sherlock remembered his own struggles with the pain relieving qualities of laudanum, struggles that Molly had only barely understood when he'd had them.

"Please don't go away to the war, Sherlock. You needn't follow your old friend Dr. Watson to everything he does."

"I doubt they'd take me, Molly, but I will definitely endeavor. Now, let's to bed—our son will be awake much too brightly and much too early for even my tastes at this rate." He threw back the drink she'd poured him, and led her out of the study.

That night Sherlock tried not to think about John, tried not to think about the rumors about a poison gas being developed in France, or his other colleagues across the Channel. He tried to force himself to believe the idiocy that this war would be over before the New Year, that his second child's first memories would be happy ones—where neither parent was worried or absent. Well, COMPLETELY absent. He had a year in which to work, and to observe Molly's condition and behavior, and after that he would return to Cambridge and to teaching.

Molly breathed easily at his side, though she'd taken a long time to get comfortable and then fall asleep. He'd known, long ago, that she wasn't quite normal. Mycroft had warned him against marrying her, and had lobbied for several years that Sherlock have her institutionalized somehow. The scandal would be worth saving you the heartache, Sherlock, his elder brother had said.

The light that Molly brought into his life, however, was well worth her humorless jokes and her disordered temper. There were few people Sherlock had ever felt genuinely happy with other than Molly, and he tried to keep her just as happy in return. It as an easy job, he was the first to admit outside of her presence, because there just wasn't as much there to keep happy. His friendship with John Watson was a rocky but deep one because there was just so much more to KNOW about John than there was with Molly. Sherlock had wanted someone with whom he could relax, someone who wouldn't feel cheated in the amount of attention he gave them, and Molly was that person.

She'd always counted, and he would always trust her—to the extent that a delicate woman such as herself could be trusted.


	14. Unaccepted Dinner Invitations - Sherlock/Molly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft sees a coffee-date and decides to do a bit of legwork about the case of his brother and Molly Hooper. He doesn't want to feel responsible for yet another broken heart if Sherlock was just using the poor woman to prove a point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because D wanted some Molly/ace!Sherlock, with ace!Mycroft looking on. In her prompt she said "that both the Holmes brothers are asexual, but not in this particular case aromantic." So, as acelock is near and dear to my heart (I spend a lot of time thinking about just what it means to me to be ace, how I'll ever cope with relationships, etc) I decided to take up the prompt. It was quite fun to write!
> 
> This also features some of my headcanons: Peter Guillam and George Smiley mentored Mycroft, and Mycroft is also "M" in the James Bondverse. Yes.

Sherlock knew that Mycroft had bugged the coffee shop, which thoroughly explained the situation he was currently watching on the CCTV that his assistant had brought him— _F is doing something out of the ordinary, M, thought you ought to know_.

His brother had taken that woman from the morgue out to coffee—she'd been offering on and off over the last few years, and it seemed that it was this scene, this _display_ , was how Sherlock had chosen to acknowledge the bug as well as the woman herself.

It was more than a bit cruel to the woman in question, in Mycroft's opinion. But, as he watched longer, the tableaux seemed to have a certain nuance of genuine feeling in it as well.

Sherlock's face was lined with a bit of a smile, and one of his hands was stretched across the table to inspect the woman's fingers. People rarely touched either Sherlock or _Molly_ —yes, that was her name—and this was something that Mycroft could easily read. His brother because of, well, his own behavior. The woman, Molly, because, well, she worked in a morgue of all places.

But in Sherlock's case there was more than that, which was why it was mean of Sherlock to choose this particular way to acknowledge the bugged coffee shop. Molly had no way of knowing that Sherlock probably was at the limits of his comfort zone with holding her hand, and that she was unlikely to ever get the kind of relationship most other women wanted.

Mycroft decided to play scientist, then. Depending on Sherlock's reaction, he would be able to tell how much of this morning's coffee-date was genuine and how much it was to just mess with Mycroft's team who looked after his brother.

* * *

He arranged it precisely. First he informed his brother's security detail of what he was doing, so that they weren't alarmed when he appeared on their monitors and in their audio-feeds. Then, he figured out a day when Sherlock would definitely be visiting the morgue where Molly worked—and planned on being there shortly before that time. Molly would hopefully still be flustered by the time Sherlock arrived, and his reaction would bear out the truth of the matter.

"Molly—hello." Her trembling smile was a bit endearing, he had to admit. Perhaps the sight of it warmed his brother in the same way, brought him comfort. Mycroft didn't have to try very hard to see something soothing in Molly, though, so it probably meant that Sherlock saw absolutely none of it.

"Hello, Mycroft," her voice was soft, and she looked a bit like a cat with her lips pursed just so. Not some glorified sex object definition of a woman looking like a cat—but actually what a cat might look like if turned into a human being. Mycroft liked cats, so his smile back at her was one of his more pleasant ones. He could tell from the cat hairs on her clothing that Molly liked cats as well.

He didn't beat around the bush, to make sure that she didn't feel manipulated into it. Mycroft knew well enough the kinds of things Sherlock often said to this particular woman in order to get her to comply with his wishes over the years—by avoiding the same behavior, Mycroft commended himself to her with honesty.

"You know, my mother has just called to stand me up for a dinner we'd planned on—and it would be a shame to waste the reservation. I wondered if you would accompany?"

It took all of Mycroft's considerable talent at being straight-faced to not laugh at the exaggerated gulp that Molly took.

"Dinner?"

"Yes—this Thursday, I can pass along the details later today if you like."

"Why me?" Ah, good question—one which people all too often never asked in true earnest.

"When I ended the call with Mummy, I wondered who might replace her. I don't hold many people, men or women, in my social circle so it isn't odd—to me at least—that your name came to mind. That evening is free of other commitments because of that dinner reservation, so it isn't like I've got anything else that needs doing." Wrong, on so many levels what with having to train _yet another_ Bond to replace that one who'd gotten himself killed in Venice, but Molly couldn't know that.

"Can I have the afternoon to think it over? I would have to get the end of my shift—oh, well," she'd remembered what he did for a living it seemed. There were a dozen people he could send to find a replacement pathologist for a night, and it warmed him again to think that she understood that. "Well you know what I mean."

"I do indeed. Here," he produced a little card, with an address to a flat in Chelsea and his name on it, and handed it over to her. His personal mobile number was on it as well. The flat had once been his predecessor's, but had remained within the Service as a bit of a public-meeting place for agents and operatives.

"You can call me with your answer. I'd prefer it, actually, over a text. Have a good afternoon, Molly."

Molly nodded just a bit, holding the card with both hands tucked close to her body.

* * *

Mycroft settled in to review the footage—as one of the few places Sherlock would actually sit down and eat, St. Bartholomew's Hospital was thoroughly wired, bugged, monitored, and patrolled. For several years before his drug problems, and recently since he'd gotten past them, Sherlock had been an _F_. Unlike an M, who oversaw and controlled and managed, Fs went out of their way to break into the unbreakable places in the world—they were highly prized on the black market and Mycroft had long considered that one of his worst mistakes as a human being was training his own younger brother to be one.

Regardless of whatever other problems they had, it was this that Sherlock had never forgiven him for and probably never would. Because the constant hovering and security that Mycroft smothered his brother with was because without them Sherlock would be kidnapped within a week and tortured for information ruthlessly. Because try as he might, Sherlock still had the urge to break into things, to figure out the combinations—of people, places, log-ins, electrified fences, the lot of it.

The only luck his brother had was that he wasn't like every Bond that Mycroft had ever authorized. His status as a government agent hadn't gone straight to his head and fallen from there to his groin—Sherlock didn't lust after everything that moved like a lot of Bonds did, and it was so far an excellent trait. But with this new revelation concerning Molly Hooper, it did worry Mycroft a bit that Sherlock was accidentally implying things he didn't mean.

"Molly are you alright?"

"I'm…I'm fine." His brother cocked his head at the _you're bullshitting me_ angle, and Molly's shoulders hunched a little.

"Well, your brother came by earlier—and, well, um, I don't think that he—"

"Approves? Thinks that we can't handle our own lives?" If he were anyone else, Mycroft would have cringed at Sherlock's sneering tone. It was a credit to Molly that she didn't. Instead she laughed once and wrapped her arms around Sherlock's waist. Although slow to do it, Sherlock put his arms around her as well.

"I don't think that he even knows about us. Well, no—well, no, yes. Us. Otherwise I don't think he would have done what he did."

Sherlock froze on the TV feed. If Mycroft _had_ actually done anything, he would have felt a twinge of fear at that very moment.

"What did my brother do, Molly?"

"Just—he asked me to dinner. I told him I'd think about it—obviously going to turn him down, but he wouldn't have asked if he'd known, right?"

"No, of course not." Sherlock normally ignored the cameras—he'd been trained on where to find them, so he always ignored where they would be. Except for right now as, over Molly's shoulder, he stared right at one of them. His eyes were incredibly hard.

"And it's not like he'd really understand it, either," Molly babbled on, unaware of the terrifying look Sherlock was giving to the camera which was filming them. "Us, I mean." That broke the stare, though, and Mycroft was upset that he felt so relieved. He was also relieved that he'd been wrong about what Molly knew and understood about his quite asexual brother.

The smile from the coffee shop was back as Sherlock cupped Molly's cheek, and that seemed to be enough for both of them.


	15. Where the Tide Comes In - Sherlock/Molly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was free from the human world and that came freedom from feeling lonely. It would take someone brave enough to admit to themselves that they'd seen a mermaid to change that. Thanks to otttersaintkisses for letting me write something inspired from her photoset!

She hadn't seen it happen.

The night had been bright with moonlight, and she'd gone far out to play with the seals in the dappled shadows beneath the waves. She preferred seals to dolphins, she'd long ago found out, as the seals were steady and trustworthy. Dolphins played too hard, and they chittered constantly. They made her self-conscious—a human woman with a long, dusky red tail meant for swimming free in the water. It was long enough that if she curled up around a harbor buoy she could hide her shoulders and head with the fins, completely disguising herself to the land-locked humans who might cast their eyes out at the water.

She was glad she hadn't been near enough to see it happen. As she'd come home to the little dock, which she slept under at high tide, she could taste the blood in the water. A man and a woman floated, spread-eagled and face down, along with the waves. Her tail fins curled in just a little at the sight of legs in the water—how hard it must be to swim with tiny feet! She couldn't remember swimming without her tail—her first attempts at swimming had been when she'd discovered her…her anomaly.

Their mouths gaped and their faces were bulging—probably blue even out of the water—by the time the human authorities collected them. The man had been particularly hideous . The people also brought along divers, with long plastic fins attached to their feet. She had watched from as far away as she dared, peeking out from behind an old piling whose dock had long since fallen into the water. It looked terribly funny to see them walking with exaggerated steps around the dock before or after getting into the water.

They shivered terribly from a frigid environment that she'd long since grown accustomed to. If she tried hard to remember, she knew that she'd made it five years before she'd run away to the water. Five years of sitting in baths because showers turned her, from the torso on down, into something half-girl and half-fish. Five years of begging off summer holidays to the beach. Pretending to come down terribly sick with something at the last minute before a vacation to Marseilles when she was sixteen. Being terrified of accompanying her friends to the pool lest someone pick her up and throw her in.

No, it was better this way—she lived her life with her little dock and her buoys and her seals.

* * *

Sherlock was nearly going to tear his hair out. The bodies had been recovered too late for anyone to really get good forensic evidence from them. Salt water could do that—which meant that he had to go to the crime scene, what existed of it, and look for clues himself. Sometimes he had dreams where he had a good pathologist on file somewhere in the city, who could be bullied to look at police bodies after he bullied the police to send them elsewhere than their own morgues.

The scene was a bit bleak.

A small harbor—not a good one, but with a few jetties it seemed to be passably functional. The perfect place for a little bit of murder—big enough that no one really knew faces, and not so big that there was much presence of security or cameras. None of the people who'd reported the two bodies—forcibly linked by a length of rope at their ankles—had actually seen anyone at that dock the previous night. It wasn't a place for lovers, he decided rather grimly. In this little southern town on the coast they preferred to go to the beach and find a secluded spot for a few hours. Not a dingy little dock like—this—one.

There was a small face looking up at him from across the way, a hint of shoulder peeking out from the piling they hid behind. It looked like a woman's face, but there was something not quite _womanish_ about it. She was as pale and blue-hued as a corpse left in water too long—Sherlock felt this was an adequate description, having just been studying two such corpses in the town's morgue this morning. Her face was thin and elfin, though, and her eyes were very much alive and curious as he glanced at her from the corner of his eye.

She—he would assign _it_ if he felt the term was necessary, but for now the creature looking at him was most definitely a human woman—thought herself unobserved. He didn't doubt that she was regularly well hidden by her little half rotted and barnacle encrusted pole. There was a practiced angle to her head, a knowledge of what was noticeable and what wasn't.

His first witness, perhaps.

A skittish and odd one to be sure, swimming in the overly cool water of mid-May. It wasn't quite warm and nice yet, and certainly not swimming weather at any rate with how the wind was going. This woman seemed familiar with this area—Sherlock desperately wanted to have a few words with her. Instead, though, he finished his inspection of the dock and walked back the way he'd come. The woman would be easily found—he'd ask around the waterfront businesses about a woman with a wayward streak to her approach to water recreation. People always knew and talked of the odd ones out in their professions and interests. Sherlock was the odd one in his group of private detectives, state and city detectives, regular police forces, the lot of them.

The woman hiding behind the piling was as much a freak, to those around her, as he was. Perhaps he could build trust on that currency.

* * *

Sherlock ingratiated himself at a local pub which had a good view of the harbor. It had a good mix of older and younger clientele, and therefore a good mix of local knowledge and lore. He avoided the crusty old sailors and dock workers and gravitated towards the middle set, those between elderly and fresh faced. They'd know the history but hadn't lived long enough to relive the glory days in an awfully longwinded fashion.

He asked about the woman swimmer out on Wickets Pier, and was rewarded with funny looks from some and guarded ones from others. He pressed them—they _knew_ something, he could feel it. Taste it like blood in the water. The woman, the pale woman swimming out at Wickets, who hid in the ruins of Old Wickets—the _woman_ _who is she_.

"Mister, I don't wonder that you're not from around here. Everyone knows about the ghost out at Wickets—girl drowned herself, ten year ago or more. Just showed up one day, ate fish and chips at every place here for a week—just lookin' and starin' out at the ocean. Then just walked out through town, without a stitch—wearin' only what God gave her—and flung herself off Old Wickets pier. Never came up, and they never found her body. Water's not deep there, but the current can be murder if you don't know it. Eighteen years of age, from London. Her name was Molly, Molly something."

The pub around him was silent as everyone stared at him, the foreigner asking painful questions about a girl who'd gone mad. Her face floated to the front of his mind, though. The face he'd seen had been of a mature woman in her late twenties or her early thirties. That had been no girl of eighteen.

"But—"

" _And_ people know not to go out there, as sometimes they see her face. We used to tell the children not to go out there, or she'd grab them and drown them too—but this last has been the first time someone's died out there. Now, you can go out to Wickets and look again at Old Wickets—I would bet you five quid that you don't ever see that youthful face again."

* * *

He took a long walk on the beach instead of going back to Wickets. He had been so _sure_ that he'd seen a woman. He'd been as sure of that as he was of his own heartbeat. He listened to that heartbeat above the sound of sand between his toes and the scuff of his trousers on the beach. That face haunted him. Eerily blue tinted, and she'd been as pale as death. The wide, dark eyes which had stared at him out of that face, and the peek of her shoulder behind the pole.

She had been real, he decided. No matter what the local legend was, no matter what improbability had led to her existing at the dock that afternoon she _had been there_. It was just then that he heard a high, feminine peal of laughter from the rocks exposed by the low tide.

Perhaps it was the focus on that one woman, perhaps it was genuine curiosity, but Sherlock padded his way farther down the beach towards the sound. The barks of seals started up, or he at least hadn't heard them before. There was a person perched on a rock surrounded by the water—a woman from the set of her waist and the length of her hair—wrapped up in a sequined sarong of some sort. It was a muted and slightly pinked red. Her legs and her feet were obscured by the sarong and the water respectively.

Sherlock recognized her hair, even though at the moment it was drier than it had been at Wickets Pier. It was wavy and tangled from the water and wind.

She was sunning herself, her skin—so pale it seemed almost blue—flushed to a nearly healthy color from the warmth of the sun. Just as she was about to lean farther back on her rock and give him more than an eyeful of the rest of her lithe, swimmer's body, Sherlock found his morals. This woman wasn't put on earth for him to look at, her body's beauty was not granted to his eyes simply for the fact that she was sitting—quite topless—on a public beach in late spring.

"Miss, I was wondering if I migh—"

She whipped around, one arm crossed over her chest and the other sweeping her hair out of her face. She moved unlike any person he'd ever observed, seeming to flow from one pose to another as though she was floating. No—she moved like a dancer who had been freed from gravity. He had seen her like, but only in the barest of comparisons.

To Sherlock's great and everlasting astonishment, the woman he'd just addressed let out a startled squeak before sliding off her rock-perch and into the water without another sound. The seals, settled on their own rocks a distance away, barked louder at him for a few minutes until they quieted to the occasional whuffle or cat-call to one another. The near silence brought his attention out to them where the woman was curled up against one of the seals.

At the distance he was unsure of his eyes, but it looked as though the sarong he'd thought her to be wearing wasn't a sarong at all. The woman, who stared back at him just as intently as she petted something on her throat, wasn't a woman at all.

 _Mermaid_.

The only rational explanation for her apparent drowning a dozen years ago and her _complete set of tail and fins_. Unfortunately for Sherlock's highly rational mind, a humanoid creature with a tail and fins was completely _irrational_ and he promptly fainted under her intense gaze.

* * *

He woke up because he realized—somewhere in the great unknown of unconsciousness—that he was a bit chilled and felt like he'd been sleeping on damp sand. When he opened his eyes he realized he'd been half right. His coat was gone, and he was lying on his back behind a rock—not to be easily seen if someone were to stroll along the beach. The waves lapped and washed less than a dozen feet away, but there was no slithering trail from the water to where he was. Rather, there were unsteady tracks of footsteps all around him. As though he'd been found and arranged by some sort of clear-headed, kind-hearted drunk.

"You're frightened, but you don't think I'm a drowned girl," her voice was high and sweet, and it drew his gaze to the woman who sat a few feet away from him—if he threw himself in a lunge towards her he wouldn't make the distance—wrapped up in his long coat.

"I like that you don't think I'm a drowned girl." She was looking at the sea, and her toes laid straight against the sand and didn't dig into it. It was as though she'd quite forgotten that they flexed independently and might want to do things like dig into the sand.

"You're a mermaid." His voice was croaky and he didn't like it. The woman shrugged, the movement exaggerated by the coat over her thin shoulders.

"If that's what you want to call me, then yes. I saw you at my dock, I didn't know you'd seen me."

"But you're not a mermaid right now."

She spared him a kind, alien sort of smile—as though she didn't remember how nor care to try—and nodded.

"Did you see who murdered those two people at…your dock?"

Her eyes had left him and were back on the waves as they came in and out. She shook her head in a 'no' and that was answer enough for him. His one lead—brilliantly bizarre, yes, but a _lead_ —had gone nowhere. A dead end with this drowned girl who was now a not-drowned woman. She must have felt his continued stare, though, for she soon added:

"They were killed there though, not somewhere else. There was fresh blood in the water, ask any—well there was."

"Ask who?"

She shook her head once more and didn't answer. Sherlock looked at her hair and her slender little hands—when she had the tail, she used that for primary propulsion. She didn't use her arms or hands to swim, which meant she swam more like a mammal than a fish. But she had had her hand at her throat—he dimly remembered that from before he'd passed out.

"Do you breathe water?"

That brought out a peal of laughter from her, high and happy like he'd heard earlier as he'd walked on the beach. _Molly. Molly something_. This woman didn't look constrained to names, but Sherlock thought it fair to give her one, at least in his mind. Molly Mermaid—it sounded like the title to a children's book.

"When it suits. When I need it. Like I need your coat—so that I'm warm, so that you don't stare, so that someone walking by doesn't report us. They do that—I've watched many people get asked to leave, just for loving each other. It seems sad. But I'll give your coat back when I don't need it, when it doesn't suit."

"I see."

And he did. Or at least he was trying.

* * *

Sherlock stayed in the little town for much longer than he'd expected. The case he'd come for eventually resolved, but he took long and daily walks down the less frequented beaches. Some days he brought along books and others just himself. He kept Molly's secret, though he kept it secret that he knew her name. She hadn't shared it with him, and he found he could wait.

She was the perfect partner, he told himself sometimes as he walked to or from the beach. She was observant—a proper scientist sometimes—and she was observable. She was also trusting and kind, and showed him what her full tail looked like after just three weeks of knowing him. It was red, with scales ranging from the size of peas all the way up to his thumbnail. He hadn't been surprised that he'd thought her to be wearing a sequined sarong. Molly's tail glittered in the tidepool she'd slipped into to show him, and her pale skin had flushed as he stared.

A week later she had floated and played in the shallows of a tiny cove she'd found years ago and showed him. Sherlock had slipped in the water with her, wanting to run his fingers along the scales which sparkled brightly when they were submersed in seawater. Vaguely he wondered if she was a siren, and that the improbability of her existence was her song to trap him here. But no, he decided as she impulsively took his hands and put them where her thighs typically appeared during those few moments he saw her human.

He'd tugged her closer, sliding one hand over her cool scales to her hip and wrapping the other around her back. The kiss he drew her in for was just a press of their lips together, and it was bliss and perfection—and a splash of cold seawater to the face as Molly, his beautiful mermaid Molly, wriggled out of his arms and darted away like a minnow.

* * *

There was one thing she'd kept from her life on land, that hell where she had had to avoid water and couldn't go to France because she was apparently a _mermaid_ and where every day she had fought to not march straight off into a river and see how long it would take her to get to the sea. It was a locket, with her name etched inside. The picture had long ago disintegrated in the seawater of the tiny grotto she kept her one treasure in, but the name remained.

 _Molly_.

 _Molly Hooper_.

Sherlock had been so kind, and there was so much boyish wonder in his eyes when he was with her. He seemed to be a rather cold man when he was away from the water, away from her. She knew he wouldn't stay, but perhaps giving him this—her last tie to that life on land that she'd given up a long time ago—would keep him here for a little while longer.

The coolness of his lips on hers had been more exhilarating than the first rush of autumn's glacially cold currents. The water around her had seemed uncomfortably boiling hot, whereas his arms were cool and his kiss had been a treasure. But if he was getting carried away enough to kiss her it meant that he would get carried away long enough to try and take her from the water. He would want a normal life, for him who didn't sprout fins when dunked in water. He would want Molly Hooper, whoever she had been.

This locket was all she had left of that woman-child who had flung herself off of the off-limits dock. That woman, who had a life to look forward to which included a husband and children and baths where she shaved her legs, was right here with eleven little letters in straight font. She put it on, testing the feel of it where it sat over her heart. She loved Sherlock, but she couldn't keep him.

* * *

He hadn't seen her for a week after he'd kissed her. A dozen times a day he'd cursed himself and his uncontrolled hormones and told himself to leave—go home to London, a place Molly would never go to by water and could never go to by foot. She would need to learn all the savvy of a thirty year old woman in the space of days or even hours, and while she was bright she was sometimes easily overwhelmed. Sherlock hadn't haunted _all_ of their usual beaches, but he had wandered along a few of them. He'd even gone to Wickets Pier and skipped stones for an hour.

_You're a detective, go find her._

_And how? The case that brought me here was hindered enough by what saltwater can erase, what clues do I have on a woman who_ lives _in the water?_

Sometimes he thought he saw her tangled hair or her large brown eyes, but the visions were gone by the time he'd ever turned his head properly to look. It wasn't until he was desperate to apologize, desperate to make amends for frightening her, that she appeared in his hotel room in the middle of the night. A sad scrap of cloth wrapped around her body had served well enough for a dress, it seemed, but it was soon dropped to the floor as she walked towards him on her clear-headed, well-meaning drunk feet. She'd confided to him once that she hadn't been out of the water to such an extent that her legs returned for _years and years_. It was her afternoons and days with him which had her out of the water more and more often. Sherlock missed her glittering scales when she did, though, but found the words hard to say.

All that she wore was a little pendent on a chain which swung between her breasts, above her heart. Sherlock had let her push him back, urge him to undress with fingers which were unsure simply because they rarely worked with clothing. They both managed well enough, finally standing naked together in the small room. Just like in the cove, Molly grasped his hands and put them on her body.

"You might not—might not be normal afterwards," she said, her voice soft as she let him pull her close. "It might be some sort of infection—"

"It might also be some sort of freedom, too," he murmured as he—very deliberately and cautiously—leaned in for a better, more thorough kiss than they'd had before. It wouldn't be so very bad to swim with her for the rest of his days, he decided, it wouldn't be so very bad at all.


	16. Life on Mars - Sherlock/Molly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And in the seat with the clearest view in a darkened theatre, Molly Hooper met Sherlock Holmes. A Sherlolly origin-story with bits of teenlock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Molly Hooper-POV fic to the tune/emotion of Life on Mars. I kind of got it wrong, because it was supposed to be her relationship with her father, but I've been stumped with that for months. So here you go, D, hope you like it. And all the rest of you?...

Molly hadn't grown up in the city. She'd not even grown up near the city. When she was sixteen she and her then-boyfriend-one-true-love had run away, with just about nothing in their pockets but lint and hope that the big city would make something of them. London had been huge, blisteringly full of people for the two teenagers from the country. They'd stuck it out together for a month before Thomas had gone back home, tail between his legs. Molly had stayed and made things work, as hard as they were. She'd been happier here.

Her parents weren't around to fight anymore, and her choices and her bills were all her own. It was in this barely-getting-by life that she'd met Sherlock. He'd been tall and gaunt, shivering and twitching in clothes that used to be nice but were now ratty from living on the streets. Molly hadn't been stupid enough to take him home with her the first time she met him, but it had been alright to let him snuggle—high as a kite—against her shoulder in the darkness of the movie theatre. The film was something bright and happy—a bubbly treat for herself after having a few pounds left over from bills and rent.

She'd been in the city long enough by then to know a druggie when she came near one, and could also almost tell when one was going up or coming down.

He had been harmless throughout the movie, too high to properly pay attention but just conscious enough to keep just his head resting on her shoulder, his arms clutched around one of hers. Eighteen year old Molly hadn't thought anything of it, really, having had to quickly get used to the closeness of other people in the city—did it hurt anyone to let this other boy be just a little bit closer? In later years, once she was in a better flat and a real job, Molly was just a little bit upset with herself. But not by much, because that was the only time it had ever happened and it had been _Sherlock_.

When the film was over—the credits rolling—Molly had made as if to stand up. The boy—who couldn't have been more than nineteen or twenty—clutched tighter to her arm for a split second before rocking back in his seat a little and fishing in his pockets. Molly mentally prepared to go for her pepper spray—all sorts of illegal, she knew, but this little interlude had been fine right up until now. Now she needed to risk arrest, for her own safety.

"I—I've got tickets for the whole day. You liked it—I know you did, you laughed when they—you can stay, we can watch it together. Please?"

In his hands, hands with long, square fingers and less grime than Molly had expected, were five more tickets for the film. She'd looked from the tickets to his face—able to see it for the first time now that the lights were coming up and the staff were wheeling in some bins to clean the place—and her eighteen year old heart had broken for him. Very slowly she reached out and took one of the proffered tickets—she _had_ liked it, and if she had the money she would've gone to see it again. The boy's smile had been relieved, on the edge of happy and Molly couldn't help but let her own lips twitch a little also.

"Sir—Miss, we need to clean the theatre, if you're going to be seeing another film you can come back in about twenty minutes," Molly started at the hesitant voice from behind her, and the boy clenched his hands so fast he crumpled his tickets a bit. He'd stood up, wobbly on his feet, and led the way out to the lobby.

"Can I—" he twitched his elbow out a touch, wanting Molly to put one or both of her hands through his arm. She knew it was for stability, not anything else. Fairytales didn't happen, she'd learned that lesson the hard way when she'd come to London two years ago with Thomas. The boy steered them towards the concessions, being deliberate with his steps as he reached his free hand into his pocket and withdrew a leather wallet that had seen better days.

"Got a date this afternoon, Sherlock? Thought you were just by yourself for the day," the cashier said after the boy— _Sherlock —_ had ordered a couple of sodas and crisps. Molly had blushed, stammering until Sherlock had put a hand on the one she held his elbow by. It was odd how stable he looked, but as she stood right next to him he was trembling like a leaf.

"Just a friend for the day. Can—can I use one of my tickets for her? She'd like to watch it aga—again." The woman, whose black nametag said _Lorraine_ , had nodded with a smile as she handed over the treats Sherlock had gotten them.

They sat together on a little bench outside of the theatre, enjoying the warmth of the late afternoon. The boy, Sherlock, had looked even worse for wear in the bright daylight. Molly didn't open her crisps because he hadn't—it felt rude—but she did take a few sips of the drink he'd gotten her.

"It's silly," he said, not moving a muscle or gesturing at all, "I—I come here when I take too much. When I'm afraid—so that someone will find me if—if—and I was afraid today. Very afraid. But you seemed like someone I could count on. Someone who wouldn't just let—let me die."

Molly, only eighteen, hadn't had anything meaningful to say to that. There wasn't anything _to_ say, other than the obvious _Come see me when you feel like that, I wouldn't ever just let you die._ That had come later, but Molly that afternoon couldn't have known it. So, because she'd been unable to say anything, she'd taken his hand and held it until he stood up and toddled them both back to the darkness of the theatre to watch the film again.

* * *


	17. The Gumshoe Detective and The Femme Fatale - Sherlock/Molly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock style. Sherlock knows that it is cliche to take on a case because of a beautiful woman, but he can't help it. There's something about Molly Hooper that speaks to him, and so he takes her case even though it is an open and shut. Oneshot, complete, from a prompt over on tumblr.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt from Books4evermore over on tumblr about their personal headcanon of how Sherlock and Molly meet: through a case, and when Sherlock finds out Molly is a pathologist he decides to visit her at her labs. Because she is nice and sweet, she lets him. It was fun to do, though it did meander a bit away from the original idea as I wrote more and more.

If anyone at the time had asked Sherlock why he took the Hooper case, he would have begrudgingly admitted that he found the woman—Molly Hooper—quite pretty and in possession of a sweet personality. He wouldn't have wanted to, knowing of course the ensuing gumshoe-detective-femme-fatale jokes, but that was the original reason. He hadn't asked any demanding questions, searching for the grain of bizarre in her case as he did almost all others, he'd only set to work on helping her.

She was being blackmailed, over a stolen cat. Molly had adopted the elderly black cat, intent on giving it a good last few years of life, and then had had her flat broken into in the middle of the night. The men had held her at gunpoint while one of them collected the grouchy feline.

Mr. Holmes, Hugo is really quite old so you can't mind his grumpiness he can't exactly help it.

Sherlock, please.

O-okay.

Molly had been traumatized by the experience, but other than having her cat stolen nothing else had happened to her or her flat that night. It was the next week when the shelter called her, saying the cat had been claimed by a former owner and they needed it back immediately. Molly had been distraught, telling the man on the phone that her cat had been abducted recently and she didn't know how or where to find it. The shelter had threatened to blacklist her from future adoptions unless she produced the cat or the police records for the break-in.

Except Molly had been too frightened the night of Hugo's abduction to call the police.

And I could—I could've dealt with the blacklisting. I mean, what kind of person doesn't give a pet back to the person who loves it? Wh-what kind of heartless person would do such a thing?

But there was more to it, you soon found out?

More? More the size of Scotland, Sherlock!

Days later she returned from work to find a ransom note slipped into her letterbox. It listed out the prices and conditions she'd have to meet to get Hugo back, as well as how to contact the person who had ordered Hugo to be taken. This was where she'd gotten the strange feeling that the catnappers and the cattery were working in tandem, and also where she'd brought in a consulting detective. It was the curiosity of why cats that kept Sherlock focused on the case.

That and Molly compulsively made him coffee when he visited her for more details and she made lovely coffee.

In the end, Molly's feeling that something wasn't quite right helped Sherlock topple a minor blackmailing ring. He also, once the perpetrators were in handcuffs and being loaded into police vans, collected the one black cat out of the bunch and gently loaded into a carrycase. The cat growled at him the whole walk to Molly's flat, but settled into hesitant purring as he took the stairs up to her flat. The purring was warm and loud by the time he knocked on her door.

Molly hadn't cried with happiness when he handed the cat to her, but her grin had been so wide it looked like it hurt. Her incredulous laughter was lovely to hear. She'd invited him in for coffee and sat on the couch cuddling Hugo as Sherlock sipped on his drink.

"What do you do, by the way, Miss Hooper?"

"Doctor—Doctor Hooper. Um, well," she bit her lip and the shine seemed to go out of her a little bit. Embarrassment, reluctance—Sherlock wished he hadn't asked. "Well, I'm a pathologist at St. Bartholomew's Hospital. I, um, well, a pathologist is like a coroner. That's—that's what I do." With every word she seemed to shrink, to back away, no doubt thinking that Sherlock would be like every other person she'd probably ever explained that to. People were leery with those who dealt with the dead. Luckily Sherlock wasn't 'people.'

"Are you an assisting or the head?"

"Assisting, but if Stamford ever retires then I'm first in line for the job," the bright cheeriness returned to her face. Just a little but enough for Sherlock to know that, as all gumshoe detectives were, he was doomed.

Molly's squeak of surprise the next day was memorable as she whipped around to face him. He'd been trying to slip her check back into her pocket, having decided in the last fifteen hours that access to her labs—and being around her—was a much better payment than a monetary one.

"Sherlo—"

"Molly," he made sure to smile as warmly as he knew how without looking like he was on his way to be committed, "I was wondering if I might be able to beg a tour of your labs?"


	18. Consulting Stylist - Sherlock/Molly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock Holmes cuts hair, and today he is going to be cutting Molly Hooper's.

Sherlock Holmes did not do just anyone's hair. The renowned hairstylist had done hair across every BBC channel to stint work at mini-series and on-location-films and occasionally at hole-in-the-wall-black-box theatres. It was rumored that he'd done Paul McCartney's hair as well as Victoria Beckham's, though there wasn't any evidence to substantiate these claims.

Molly's sister Anita—whose boss called her Anthea—had gotten her the appointment. "I'm tired of taking you places and having you just put your hair up in a pony tail. Your hair is lovely and if you have to have Sherlock's help to see that then that's what it's going to be. Besides, you'll get to ogle him up close—no more style magazines when you've got the real thing, right?"

Molly worked as a style magazine proof-editor, and saw a lot of Sherlock Holmes and his wild curls. Her bosses—everyone, in fact—teased her that she took so long on the proofs because she was in love with him. That wasn't quite the case. She just admired his hair cuts and his eyes and how confident he seemed in interviews. She liked that he didn't hide his opinion, and Molly certainly didn't disagree with the notion that he was the Gordon Ramsay of the salon.

"Now—let's see." He'd taken her wrist and guided her to the single chair in his salon, surrounded on three sides by mirrors and the fourth open to the natural light from the window looking out over Baker Street. His hands straightened her to look directly into one of the side mirrors, his fingers warm and light on her cheeks.

"Too much shampoo during washes, but the washes are spaced well enough. You had your hair trimmed four inches shorter on your last cut for split ends, and whatever idiot did it to you didn't mention you'd need less product. Well, your hair is my responsibility now. You'll not be hurting it anymore."

"But I've got such long hair and it—"

"Is very thick, yes, yes. Anita said you'd be petulant but I think she rather mistook it for innocence. She is what—five years your senior?"

"Almost six, actually," she said, trying to keep calm so that she didn't blush as she looked up at him as he inspected her hair. He tsk'd but didn't comment, instead his eyes narrowing at how the waves of her hair fell over her shoulders. He stepped behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders as he leaned his face in next to hers to smile unnervingly at her in the mirror.

"I think a pixie bob is what's in order. It will let us start on a fresh slate as to how to take care of your hair properly, and it will let you see all the possibilities of your hair while we wait for it to grow back out."

Molly stared at him, her jaw a little slack. Sherlock's eyebrows knitted together in a semblance of concern.

"Didn't your sister tell you? Once I take on a project like this I like to see my work go undisturbed by other stylists," he pecked her cheek and then spun her chair around to face the window, "something you know all about, with your proofing job. Now, I want you to tell me all about yourself while I save your hair."

* * *

Molly chewed on her lip a lot as she told Sherlock about herself. She tried to distract herself from the sound of snipping by staring out at the street the window looked out on. She tried not to shiver when his fingers lightly touched her shoulders and neck. She was about to be stuck with this man for months or even years—

"Does your work have any hang-ups about color?"

He seemed to be done with the traumatizingly huge cut, his sheers laid to rest on the side table. Sherlock took a few steps to face her, leaning on the sill of the window he'd had her looking out of. Molly took a deep breath—her head felt like a balloon without all of her long hair weighing it down—and gathered her wits.

"No, we work in fashion. Miranda just the other day came in with pink highlights and half her hair shaved off—" The hairstylist's mouth twisted into a sneer as he muttered a quick word. She couldn't quite make out what he'd said, but it sounded like _arty_. Miranda's hair had certainly been _arty_ though.

"Well, no raging psychopaths with scissors and dye for you Molly. Though I am thinking," he pushed off the sill and got in her face, one hand tipping her chin up and the other threading through her now viciously short hair. Molly held her breath and forced herself to meet his eyes rather than closing her own or looking away. For a dizzy moment she thought he was going to kiss her, but instead he leaned back a few inches and his eyes went from focusing on her face to her hair.

"All over color in…cerulean. It will darken your eyes a little and take away a lot of the warmth of your skin, in comparison, but with the right black dress," he let a smug grin light his face for a second with a meaningful raise of his eyebrows. Molly had seriously been thinking of developing a hat collection to hide her hair until it grew out a little, until she had the confidence to show off such short hair. But the blue…that would be hard to hide. People would constantly be asking that she take off her hat so they could see.

He was giving her the perfect avenue for getting comfortable with her new style, and she nodded with a nervous smile.

"Molly Hooper, I am going to kiss you senseless if you keep agreeing so prettily. You aren't afraid at all," his tone turned wondering at the end as he turned away and started rifling through the drawers of his station looking for the dyes.

"I see your work all the time…Anita probably told you all abo—well. You don't do things the way everyone else does them. You do them better…you're…precise, and you understand the limits of—um." He straightened slowly and stared at her as she spoke, completely attentive to her words rather than his current mission to concoct blue hair dye. Molly straightened up a little in her chair, uncomfortable under his scrutiny.

"You see me. You see…." He cleared his throat and set down the bottles in his hands. With a step he was behind her, and with one hand he turned her so she faced a mirror once more rather than the window. In the reflection he was staring down at the crown of her head, his hands hesitantly in the air over her shoulders before he won some war with himself and settled those hands firmly on her. Then he looked up into the mirror into her eyes.

"It would appear that I need to ask you on a proper date to keep you around. You didn't come here because your sister conned a haircut out of a celebrity stylist—you came here because. Oh. Well." His attitude had completely evaporated even as Molly's heart thudded loudly in her chest at what Sherlock was trying to say. He dropped his gaze once more to her hair, one hand going to fiddle with it, just threading fingers through the short strands.

"Cobalt blue would suit you better if you're stuck with me at a party." Molly smiled widely at that, just barely suppressing a giggle that of course he would think of that rather than if she would go out on a date with him. The answer must have been evidenced enough, though, with nearly two feet of brown hair scattered on the floor under his feet.

"Well you're the hairstylist, Sherlock. I just edit the proofs."

* * *

She knew it was impulsive and she'd more than likely get hurt in the end, but she willingly jumped into the bizarre relationship Sherlock offered to have with her. He would get bored with her when he ran out of excitement over her hair and her willingness to let him do as he would with it—it was flattering to be his muse at the moment, but something kept her reluctant to believe this could last in the long-term.

He appreciated her though, getting her to sit in the room during appointments. Some of his clients gave her a wary eye, but Sherlock waved away their concerns. "Sometimes my tastes go a little too high fashion, Molly is here to help me keep my wits," or something along those lines was his typical response. Molly found she liked her pixie bob and the blue Sherlock and chosen, but he steadfastly refused to keep it short for her. They'd bickered a little bit over it, not very seriously but the topic did surface from time to time.

"Molly, we are progressing from short to long to let you _see_ your hair. Probably for the first time in your life—once you've grown it out long again, we can bring this back. Though," he put one arm around her waist and lightly touched her jaw with his free hand, "this bob is certainly fetching on you. I might have to do wicked things to you later on when you get back from work."

And he did to wicked things to her.

His self-admitted favorite was going down on her—and Molly couldn't deny that she loved him for the way he could drive her mad and the way his hair sliding between her fingers—but Molly loved it when she was on top and looking at him through her blue bangs and his curly hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat. She loved the way he clutched her hips so tightly when she came around him and nearly drove him over the edge himself—and she loved it more when he dug his fingers deeper when he lost it entirely. Her friends sometimes asked her out of the corner of their mouths— _but he's a hairstylist, isn't he gay as a goose?_ Molly would blush crimson as she refuted their assumptions.

At parties his brother forced him to go to—Mycroft Holmes was something of an unspoken leader in British fashion—Molly's hands weren't her own. Sherlock held her hand, or slung an arm around her lower back while his hip jutted into hers. He wouldn't move more than a foot from her for the evening. Needless to say she'd never come back from getting drinks to find him flirting or being flirted with by another woman.

Still Molly worried that once their project with her hair was over he would leave her. He got bored with his clients all the time—and she'd started off as his client.

"Molly," his voice woke her up from the light doze she'd dropped into after waking up briefly one morning. The sunlight from his window was warm on her front, and Sherlock was curled around her back keeping her doubly warm. She put her hands over his arm and squeezed once to let him know she was awake. She'd been dead tired recently, and hadn't had a good solid breakfast for weeks. She knew why, of course, but she hadn't told Sherlock yet. The worry still lingered that she was his project and muse and nothing more.

"Molly I—" she fought for a little more clarity through her drowse and turned over to face him. Sherlock held her closer, his lips just an inch from her own as he spoke.

"We should get old together. I'd like to get married—to you. It's sudden, but I was watching you sleep this morning as the sun came up and I realized I don't ever want to wake up alone or have you wake up in some other man's house. There was plenty of time for that before you met me, but now we're…us."

Molly smiled and kissed him, reaching up to thread her fingers through his curls.

"You're much better at hair than words, Sherlock. But yes, getting married would be lovely. Though I don't know _who_ I'll be able to book to get my hair done," her tone turned teasing, "My stylist will be busy that day." He laughed at that and leaned her back so he could settle on top of her, balancing on his elbows.

"Well, maybe he won't be too busy to see his favorite client?"

"I think it's going to be _clients_ unless we get married in the next six months." That brought him up short for only a moment before a truly wolfish grin swept over his face. Molly felt something inside her that had been tense relax as Sherlock leaned down to kiss her.

"I'm going to have to raise my rates to pay for nappies and a ring." She gasped and swatted him.

"Only you would bring those two up in the same sentence!"


	19. The Ones You Love - Family Origin/Crossover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and Mycroft's mother wasn't cut out for being there for them, but luckily Sherlock's father was there. They weren't quite raised by James Bond to grow up into neat little James Bond Juniors, but near enough. Sherlock/Tinker Tailor crossover.

Richard made him go to the christening, of course, even though the man himself stayed home to read the paper and simmer. They'd only just made up six months before, and things like babies didn't just disappear. Belinda had been wonderful in a stilted kind of way for a year and then she'd come to him to tell him she was tendering her resignation from the Service. She was taking her six year old, Mykie, and going to the country to have her baby. His baby, too, though initially they'd both agreed it was best he had limited contact. Especially after he'd faced his demons and gone back to Richard.

Belinda had said it was worth having her pension marked as "interrupted service," to have the child properly. Peter wasn't even rightly sure that the baby was his—a tiny head of dark curls which didn't match Belinda's golden hair or his own gingered blonde. Time would out, he decided. The infant was two weeks old when she'd come to London, and Richard had cooed despite himself over the boy while Mykie had stared at Peter in a less-than-vaguely betrayed manner.

At the time he hadn't the heart to tell the seven year old boy that his mother would never give him a permanent parent to look up to. He hadn't said anything other than a pleasant, if distant, greeting to the boy who not a year ago he was contemplating the task of being father to. If Richard hadn't agreed to take him back, Peter had been fully prepared to live like George Smiley—and let Belinda walk out on him when she pleased, leaving him to limp the rest of their lives along. It would be better for Mykie to have one constant in his life, he'd once bravely thought in Belinda's shower as he vigorously scrubbed himself of her scent, of her touch. He'd even brought his own soap for the very cause.

Because of the special circumstances of _Sherlock's_ birth, Peter spent a lot of time looking after the two boys. Belinda still wandered about, but with the anchor of Sherlock to Peter she could leave the two with him and Richard for a weekend. Or two. Or seven. Richard had an affinity for Sherlock, calling the infant _Sher_ , while rocking him in his arms. Mykie looked on usually, standing just at Peter's elbow. A pudgy boy fortunate enough to not need glasses paired with a thin and forgettable face, and a hairline fracture of clinginess in his icy personality—Peter felt terrible that a _seven_ year old was so closed off, but didn't know how to help, not really.

Richard was an apt parent for Sherlock, leaving Peter able to set straight to work on Mykie— _Mycroft_ , because Belinda was some sort of psychotic and had given her children freakish names. Hadn't she thought that these two children would eventually have to face boarding school?

"Mykie, do you like Sher?"

The little boy shrugged, uncomfortable in the knitted sweater that Peter's mother had made for him—part of her last ditch attempts to "cure her boy from the queer," as she so lovingly put it. She wanted to play grandmother to Belinda's children, so occasionally they stuffed Mykie or Sher into her knitting projects and took pictures. His mother thought that having fathered a child meant that there was some sort of "hope" in Peter's "case."

He hated her.

"I suppose he's alright."

"Could you imagine doing _anything_ for him?"

Another shrug. Peter sighed and put a hand on the small shoulder, kneeling down in the same motion to see the world from the vantage point of a seven year old. It looked rather insurmountable from here, if he was honest. Belinda had long forgotten their agreement that they go their separate ways—Mykie was on the verge of beginning to call him 'Da' before he'd gone back to Richard, and then there was Sher—and the woman was quite content letting himself and Richard raise her children.

Peter decided to do this properly.

"In another few years, son, I hope that you will be able to. We'll talk about this again then, right?"

Mykie's light blue eyes swung over, and his little mouth was just barely agape. In his language over the last three years since Belinda introduced him to her son—Peter hadn't been all that surprised, after all he had concealed his relationship with Richard for about the same amount of time so he knew it was possible—Peter had been careful to never get too friendly with how he treated Mykie. But, if Belinda was going to rope him into this despite his rekindled relationship with the man of his dreams, he was going to do it right.

He was also going to get a good few secret agents out of it too.

"Is this one of those things I can't tell Mummy?"

"It would probably be a lot less awkward next week if you refrained, yes."

"I like Mr. Litton…Da." the name hung in the air strangely, unused and uncertain. Peter put his arm around Mykie's round little waist and they watched Richard play with Sher's fingers for a while. Despite Sher being a constant reminder of their previous pain, the fact that the boy was Peter's flesh and blood had bonded him to Richard closer than Peter ever could have hoped for.

"I do too My—son." They would figure out this charade if it killed them. But they would succeed, he could tell already from the triumphant little twitch of Mykie's lips. The same twitch was probably on his own face as well, but it was too small for him to quite tell.

* * *

Sher was toddling happily around the large flat in Chelsea, following a "treasure trail" left for him by _grand-père_ , while Peter gnawed on his thumbnail—watching George have a friendly talk with Mykie. The ten year old boy's eyes were solemn and attentive, but Peter could tell that half of him was cocked to pay attention to Sher's happy giggles. Belinda had wandered off to Scotland for the summer, leaving Sher and Mykie in Peter's care—it was only right, everyone nodded to themselves at the Circus, that since he'd knocked her up he look after her children. He was now avoided by most of the women down in Registry _and_ in Archives which was a great treat and relief. He was _That awful Guillam man. Nice enough, takes care of that kid he left Miss Holmes with. Won't marry her though, the git—don't let him smooth talk you Renee_. That, and still no one knew about Richard, save for Smiley and Mykie.

And Sher, but no one listened to a little three year old boy—who, in some bizarre twist of fate really _was_ Peter's child. The baby photos which Peter's mother kept on her mantelpiece bore it out—her boy, her stupid, stupid, queer French boy given to her by her stupid French husband, and her adorable little grandson. Spitting images of one another save the color of their hair.

Peter had to make sure that the two boys would look out for one another, and if he was lucky then they'd look out for Queen and Country as well.

" _Père_!" The cover he used with Sher was that he was French—it easily explained his sometimes long absences, even when the boys stayed with himself and Richard or with George and Ann. Peter's French had gotten a great deal better in the last three years, as he mostly spoke it to Sher to cement the identity in the child's mind. Mykie knew, of course, but played along. The boy's French was a treasure to hear, and it thrilled Richard at home. Richard, stuck teaching German when his passion and talent was in French.

"Nous sommes bien ici, Peter." George was atrocious at the language, but he was as game as Mykie to Peter's deception. He also pushed Peter into being fatherly in situations where he felt out of his depth and childish more than anything—he wasn't ever _supposed_ to be a father. It wasn't one of the things he would have ever been allowed to have, given his _proclivities_. George was good enough to step in and play grandfather as well as coach Peter through this.

Sher had reached the end of George's puzzle game and was triumphantly scrambling his way down the stairs, his prize held aloft. A stuffed bear with an eyepatch—a toy which Belinda had scorned last Christmas, and Peter had been too self-conscious to purchase, and something which Sher had yearned for with all of his tiny being since the moment he'd seen it. George Smiley knew everything. Everything.

Peter smiled a little, kneeling down and letting the toddler jump into his arms and listening to his excited babbling—Belinda wouldn't take the bear away, not when she knew George Smiley had given it to her little boy. Peter would never take something from Sher, not on purpose at least.

"As-tu triché? _"_ Mykie was always looking for the simplest solutions to things, which meant it was damned hard to keep him from cheating at games. If Peter and George could work that out of him, or help him to train it right, he would make a magnificent agent runner someday—George sometimes mentioned that he saw a lot of the old Control in Mykie, that perhaps in thirty or forty years they would have another to rival the Control who had guided the Service for three decades.

" _Non, non, Père, non!"_ Sher was another matter. He was just barely three and could hardly be induced to cheat at anything—his big blue eyes would stare Peter down every time he searched Belinda's flat for taps or listening devices. She was a flighty woman, a mediocre parent, and Peter was glad to have shed most of her away—but he owed it to the boy he'd left her with, and the boy she already had, to keep her safe. Something, though, about the two of their personalities had formed a tiny core of steel in Sher.

His boy was as honest as the London rain.

"Ceci, is this what Grand-père gave you? Est-ce que tu aimes?"

"Si, Père, si!" Peter couldn't help but smile at Sher's enthusiasm. Of course Sher liked it, George had gotten it specifically for him because the old man had _known_ Sher would like it.

"Bien."

* * *

 

When Sher started school, he had to enroll in proper English classes—Peter nearly always spoke to him in French, as did Richard. The only English he heard was out of Mykie once in a while, and from Belinda. The five year old had loathed the whole experience. Peter had to feign more than a bit of ignorance with the language, instead sending Sher to Richard or to George. It was delightfully odd—Peter spoke with his normal, regular English whenever Sher was absent, or when he was at work, but at home he was a French ex-pat. Basically he had assumed the identity of his father, whose English was in delicate health for most of his life and who preferred French to anything else.

"Père, I hate this— je déteste ça, je le déteste _!"_ Sher's round cheeks were puffy and red from crying, his eyes in a similar state, and his lips were pouting out. If he'd been able to bear the responsibilities, Peter might have asked for a foreign assignment—taken Richard and the boys to France for a few years—just so Sher might be able to attend school in the language he'd been raised with. But it wasn't feasible, France had gone over to the Communists that year and there was no way that Peter would take his family to live there _on purpose_. He felt terrible for poor Sher, stuck with his awful English grammar lessons, but there wasn't anything to be done.

"Je sais—I know, fiston, I know. Je— je suis désolé."

He petted at Sher's curls, hugging the snuffling little boy tightly.

"Et si…what if I learned with you? Qu'est-ce que tu en penses?" Sher tugged back at him to let him see the blinding smile on his tiny face, and for the first time in five years Peter felt that he wasn't playing a part to the little boy who knew him as his father. He felt just a bit worthy to claim the title.

Over the next several months—and what would be a few years, the teachers told him in sentences with small words—he and Sher painstakingly worked on their English. Mykie hovered over them, and corrected Sher with a speed and accuracy which was uncanny. George Smiley showed through with every execution of the pre-teen's decisions. Not only did George Smiley always _know_ , he was also almost always _right_. He had been the one to suggest a public school—to board rather than go as a day-scholar.

So Mykie had gone off to boarding school—under the assumed name of Michael Westerby. The particular school was one which George had insisted on. Peter himself would have insisted on it as well as it was the one he'd gone to—but the choice did reveal just where George poached such excellent personnel all these years. People didn't much talk about what school they'd been to, and kept it quiet if they'd gone to a public one.

George was, Peter knew with relief, eagerly training Mykie to join the Service when the time was right and the boy was ready. These days he was nearly Sher and Mykie's only caregiver—Belinda had even made him their legal guardian. She breezed into their lives occasionally, bearing gifts and criticism for both boys. Mykie was too round in the middle—whatever her faults were, Ann Smiley was a delightful cook—and Sher needed to wear a shirt that buttoned properly. Peter was still quite too gay, and Richard was too good at returning her strained smiles with ones of his own.

It was only when something would go against "the good of everyone" that Belinda even saw fit to put ideas into either child's head. George hadn't allowed her back into the Service—a nice, quiet sum kept her nice and quiet and allowed her to travel as she wished for the most part. Mykie took some of Belinda's rather bizarre ideas and asked George about them. Sher started to share—over-share, really, until his small toy collection was reduced to the stuffed bear with the pirate eyepatch. He didn't quite understand that that wasn't what his awful mother had meant by the "good of everyone," but it was encouraging to see him sharing so Peter was at a loss.

"Pére, why does Mykie not live with us anymore? How come he spends so much time with Grand-Pére, il ne nous aime plus désormais?"

_Doesn't he love us anymore?_

Peter reassured Sher that night, but he wasn't quite so sure of what he was reassuring the boy _for_. Because at the end of the day, once he finished raising Sher and Mykie, he was fairly sure that it would be _Sher_ who hated them—Peter, George, Mykie—rather than any other way around. Time would tell, though. Time would tell.

* * *

 

"Pére, I'd like to go by Sherlock. If that's alright with the two of you and Mummy." Peter and Richard startled at the table, not having heard Sher—Sher _lock_ —come down to breakfast. He'd gone up to his room in a fury the night before, about something he wouldn't speak of. Richard thought it was about a girl, Peter suspected it had something to do with that awful drowning.

Richard was the first to recover his wits, but then again he always was where Sher was concerned.

"Of course, of course. Though Heaven knows when your dear mother will come back from Argentina."

Sher _'s_ face split into a painful little grin as he sat down and filched some food from Peter's plate. Peter and Sher _lock_ knew that Belinda wasn't coming back from Argentina—this week's pretend destination, though Richard was none the wiser—any sooner than she was coming back from the grave she'd put herself in two years ago. _Mummy_ was their code-word for George and the Circus. Sher—Sherlock had come up with it after a lot of thought. George had been a far better mothering figure to Sh—Sherlock than anyone else had.

Neither George nor Peter faulted the boy for the assessment—George was the one who'd made Sher's birthday cake for the last three years, something Peter could only remember his own mother doing for him.

Watching the skinny boy across the table from him, Peter wondered what he would think of George's new scheme. They'd recently ended yet another Bond project—though Williams was making noises of reviving it in a few years—and George had come to him with an old notebook just a week ago. They'd had a long conversation in Arabic—the language nearly dead to Peter and quite broken from George's mouth but at the very least confidential in a home where they spoke French more often than English—about the contents of said notebook. It was an old manual, written in George's hand, marked with the Scalp-Hunter division stamps. It was called _Tiny Tim_.

Peter had vaguely heard of it once or twice in his early days with the Service, when the Circus still felt new and dangerous to him—before it was just his job.

Tiny Tim was in effect a branch-out of the Bond program. Train a secret agent—the perfect secret agent—but send them not to foreign climes but keep them at home. To _test the fences_ , as George put it. Someone able to effortlessly gain access to the very highest echelons of power and secrecy—all while doing it in service to the Crown. They were to break into various locations—The Circus, secret testing sites, the Palace, among other places—to test how long it took to get in and out. To see if anyone noticed. It would require an incredibly loyal operative to not utterly abuse the knowledge and power required of them.

The project had been scrapped in 1962, George having decided that the _kind_ of agent he needed was one he'd seen grow up from earliest infancy. A mind which could hide no secrets from him, a mind which he trusted far more implicitly than he trusted taking the next breath. Once, he'd said with a gruff chuckle, he'd thought to revive it and use Peter but that he couldn't quite make himself do it. Perhaps, he'd continued, he'd been really waiting for Peter's _son_.

S—Sherlock was that puzzle-solver. Sherlock would be, for a time, their Tiny Tim. The project was named after the Dickens character—the character whose very existence saves the soul of Scrooge, the livelihood of Cratchit, and his own life. George had never been very good with naming his projects, but Peter understood the motivation.

"Pére I was wondering if later today you might take me down to the police station—or to Scotland Yard, even. Please? S'il te plait _?_ " Peter smiled a little and nodded. He always caved when the boy brought out his French—though last year Sherlock had _scowled_ so _very_ fiercely when he'd figured out that his dear Pére wasn't actually French. The fact that he hadn't minded too much was another point in George's favor that Sherlock might grow up into just the agent they needed.

"Why do you need to go there?" Richard was always too curious, and always forgot Sherlock's sometimes massive inability to communicate in English—he still thought entirely in French, Peter believed. Sherlock rolled his eyes, muttering " _Shoes_ ," as he stuffed his mouth full of toast. Richard looked askance at the boy—he had been the one to ensure all of them had manners around the house, but with Sherlock he seemed to have failed miserably.

"Your mouth was full, couldn't understand your toast-mumble. Finis ta bouche, après tu pourras parler." Sherlock glared and started chewing with his mouth open—wide and comical chomps, his mouth an awful cement mixer of black bread and white butter—before he finally swallowed in such an exaggerated manner that Peter had a passing thought that the boy might have choked himself by accident.

"Shoes!"

George's plan might work, Peter remembered as he watched Sherlock dash up the stairs to get his things.

But it also might blow up in their faces because of the very person they needed to make it succeed. Sherlock Holmes would be the one to really decide it, they both knew. Peter quickly finished his own breakfast, pecked a kiss to Richard's cheek and then went to find his jacket and coat. Sherlock would be ready within moments, demanding to go—the twelve year old was unrelenting when he got like this. He'd found a puzzle, and he was bent on solving it. _Tiny Tim_ was at least that lucky with Sherlock.

* * *

 

They couldn't tell sixteen year old Sherlock certain things about what they were training him for. He knew that what he was doing was classified, and that it wasn't a job that just anyone was picked for. George wanted Sherlock to fly as blind as possible into as many situations as possible—once a puzzle was displayed completed, there was little point in _doing_ it really. He never repeated the same puzzle games or codes with Sherlock, _ever_. Peter was torn between awe and a little fear of his son and his mentor—George was definitely beginning to get old, nearing seventy actually, but his mind was still viciously sharp. That mind was honing Sherlock's intelligence to the same level of acute awareness, and that was the crux of Peter's unease.

He usually sat a little bit away as George went over the seven different base-schedules of security operations, as well as how to predict permutations between them, with Sherlock. Peter made sure to always thieve his own ashtray from the kitchen—Ann was just as much a smoker as George, and kept one next to the sink—and chainsmoked his way through these little training meetings. Richard refused to kiss him when he came home like this, but listening to George's soft voice detail how to predict security personnel's reactions to how to get out of handcuffs brought up bad memories.

He remembered, as he put his lips to each cigarette, Sal's face as she tried to flirt with him and the evasive answer he'd given to her. He remembered, drawing in the zing of nicotine with the smoke, how Alwyn had nearly given him a heart-attack even though it was all part of the plan. Peter remembered, jiggling his leg a little as he exhaled, the most frightening moments of his life as he tucked away classified information—what amounted to state secrets—and then the agonizing request from that man named Esterhase to go to the top floor.

Most of all he remembered the fact that _George knew how to spy on his own intelligence service in a way which was nearly undetectable._ And in the damn seventies, too. But his terror wasn't all that these meetings brought up—he had almost failed George that day, save for Belinda Holmes. She had remembered his bag for him just before he'd left the building for the day.

His genuine relief at her had apparently endeared him to her for a while—he was one of the few men who didn't harass her for being pretty and new with the Circus. Back then Peter had stuck to simple and easily dismissed flirtations around work or around co-workers. That day had been almost twenty years ago, and yet every moment of it was still vivid in Peter's mind and he was forced to relive it at least once a week.

He was lucky it was that infrequent, too. He reluctantly listened in on how to break into anywhere, using anything and anyone. George was merciless, always had been and always would be—though his favorite weapons would always be carefully laid plans and bravado. It was the one thing that Peter had always trusted about his mentor—that George's mercy was given when the man was paid what he asked for in full.

"Look at those around you, and assess what advantages they might offer. A Bond looks to the women around him, to give him a bit of comfort and for information gathering. You, however, must act on the fly with everyone you meet. Make your conversation with the soldier who hesitates, and make your case to him—don't go for the one in the smartest uniform or anything like that. Avoid involving women at all costs—if you were cut out to be a Bond, Sherlock Holmes, you would be one. And remember to never remember things that have no value, but always remember to see everything so you can look at it later."

It was terrifying that the kinds of things that Peter had once done for George were going to be at the merciless fingertips of a sixteen year old boy. One who regarded George as a grandfather and loved him dearly, yes, but at the end of the day Sherlock was sixteen and in some ways still a child. And here was George, giving him the keys to the kingdom.

Sherlock's first mission, breaking into the palace by breaking exactly nothing, went off without a hitch. A few smiles here and there, and he was effortlessly gliding through the halls and examining the paintings. The queen and her family were away, of course, but that was no reason the security should be found lacking—though not under George or Peter's jurisdiction, George had enough contacts in various places that he had soon followed up with those responsible for being taken in by Sherlock's easily falsified smile.

He had been just shy of eighteen when he did it, too.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> French translations if you couldn't get them through context:
> 
> Grand-pere: Grandfather
> 
> Pere: Father
> 
> Nous sommes bien ici: We're fine here
> 
> As-tu triché?: did you cheat?
> 
> Non: no
> 
> Ceci: this
> 
> Est-ce que tu aimes? : Do you like it?
> 
> Si: yes
> 
> Bien: Good
> 
> je deteste ca, je le deteste: I hate this, I hate it.
> 
> Je sais, fiston, je suis desole: I know, son, I'm sorry.
> 
> Et si, Qu'est-ce que tu en penses: Maybe if, what do you think?
> 
> Il ne nous aime plus désormais: doesn't he love us anymore?
> 
> Finis ta bouche, après tu pourras parler: finish your bite, then speak.


	20. The Extensive Consequences of a Failed Experiment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holmes wanted only to test a hypothesis, to ensure that his guess was the right one. 120 years later a man who claimed Holmes as namesake would deduce the family lineage in less than an hour. RDJ/SH, BC/SH, and Iron Man triple crossover, no real slash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a very complicated and very sarcastic/meanspirited timeline of how RDJ Holmes is the great-grandwhatever-grandfather of Cumberbatch Holmes and great-grandwhatever-grandfather of RDJ Tony Stark. You can read it here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8145989/1/The-Extensive-Consequences-of-a-Failed-Experiment

**1892, Sherlock Holmes (I)**

* * *

 

It had been little more than an experiment, a few weeks after his 'last case,' with Doctor Watson concluded with Lord Blackwood's _real_ death. Mostly to see if there was some way he could eek out a 'life,' with a _relationship_ complete with physical affection. He'd long ago deduced what was wrong with his dear Doctor Watson—a tragically repressed attraction to dangerous men, and to women made of steel and manipulation. It was perfectly boring, and Sherlock had soon wanted to deduce himself, to find out what _he_ wanted. Irene had been most obliging, she, being, of course, the only person on Earth who he could possibly see himself eeking out a passably normal _relationship_ with. He much preferred being alone—in fact, he knew that he quite enjoyed going without physical stimulations for months or even years, save for those of the mind—with a trusted few close by but never quite touching. Doctor Watson was the closest he'd allowed anyone in years, after Irene.

And the good Doctor was soon to be married—the Fall after this coming one, a perfectly awful time to marry, of course, but it was what the man wanted. A good long engagement to Miss Mary Morton or whatever her name was. He knew he very well could not expect that the Doctor would be willing to assist him in this experiment, but that Irene would. She was smarter than he was, on some days, and that intrigued him and gave him a strange, irrational hope that perhaps for once he and Watson were both wrong in their deductions that Sherlock Holmes would die alone.

The experiment had been a miserable failure. To be sure, Irene had been pleasant about it, even sympathetic as he struggled to understand the basics and grasp at mastery in just a few short days. She had teased him relentlessly, and it was only when she was being particularly snarky that he found any pleasure in the acts at all—debating with her took his mind off of the distasteful chore he'd set out to learn. He could perform of course—to a modicum of success—but could only watch at an impossible distance as Irene would gasp and curl and arch against him. She had left him, on that Sunday morning, with a kiss and a "We will have to practice later, Sherlock."

It was ten months before he saw her again, looking well but worried. Something in him had twisted at the thought that Irene, who was brilliant, was afraid. He'd known who she was afraid of, she helped Sherlock whenever she could to derail Moriarty's plans. Things had also happened in her absence—she'd briefly been a mother, and briefly married to an American man named Stark. They'd adopted a son together apparently, from what the papers said about it. Stark had gotten the infant in the divorce proceedings, and Irene had gotten a third of his estate. Sherlock rather thought that Irene had gotten the better end of the deal. She hadn't lived long to enjoy it, however, because before Watson had managed to marry himself off—in a desperate attempt to escape 221B and Sherlock permanently—Irene was dead.

Moriarty was methodical in getting rid of the people closest to Sherlock, who was only glad that Irene's tiny adopted son was far, far away from the man. He would perhaps have to see to that child's safety, but not before he secured that of Doctor and Mrs. John Watson. They were all he had left, after Irene's death—after Irene's _murder_.

In the next few weeks—really just two weeks had passed?—he hadn't been able to give a single thought to Irene other than the last one on the steamboat across the channel to France. He hadn't even stood long enough to watch her monogrammed kerchief fall to the sea—it was far too painful. He had been open and weak to Irene more times than he'd like to admit, and her loss was a great blow to him—probably far greater than Moriarty gave credit to, if he was very honest with himself.

After surviving his fall from the chateau in Switzerland, he had also been more concerned with taking out Moriarty's last few contacts who apparently had orders to make Doctor and Mrs. John Watson's lives difficult. There were none who were to make trouble for Mr. Arnold Stark or his toddling son, and for that Sherlock was glad. Irene had never done anything vaguely attachment-y with any of her husbands, and that made Arnold Stark speci—

The math had come quickly to Sherlock after that—they had had a date set for tea several weeks after that unpleasant weekend of learning, and Irene had sent a note pleading sickness. She had just returned from a brief visit to France and so Sherlock had thought nothing of it. After that she had quickly gone to America and married yet another brilliantly rich man and had stayed out of the limelight of his fame for several months before it was announced that Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Stark had adopted a son, naming him Carlton Stark. After another few months, the family released a photo of the new parents and their son. A son who was the spitting image of a daguerreotype of Sherlock himself as an infant sitting in his mother's lap.

Sherlock felt no sudden pangs of paternal regrets or anything of the like—it was certainly not his fault that Irene had not told him or included him or the rest of it. She had obviously arranged a good home for the child to grow up in, one with money and support, and understanding. Unless Mr. Stark was a blithering idiot of the highest kind—and the sharp expressions in his photos did not lead Sherlock to believe this—he had to have known Irene was carrying a child and married her despite it. Even after her death, Irene was brilliant. However, Sherlock did want to assure himself that his child would grow up as it should.

So the last thing he did before permanently returning to England—with a hell of a plan to scare the daylights out of Watson, it was just _perfect_ —was to visit New York to meet Mr. Stark and the young Carlton Stark who was just a year old now. When he knocked the doorman took one look at him before nodding him in.

"Mrs. Stark said that sooner or later you would show up, please follow me to the drawing room and Mr. Stark and his son will be along shortly," the old man said—he rather reminded Sherlock of Stanley, at home. Left to his own devices he quickly deduced half of the things Stark would wish to tell him when he arrived simply from the desk and the arrangement of the chairs. Letters addressed to American lawyers and British solicitors, applications in various piles from women hoping to nanny the child of the divorced Mr. Stark, two chairs one new to the room and one an original occupant—facing one another, set away from the desk. So, it was to be business, and the discussion of financial care for the child. It seemed that Irene still had standards after she'd left—intelligence, directness.

"Ah, Mr. Holmes, so good to meet you. This is my Carlton, and this," Sherlock turned round to look at the middle aged Arnold Stark who was accompanied by a maid, "Is Phineas, who is yours." In the maid's arms was a dark haired little boy who stared back at Sherlock in a steady way which Sherlock found reassuring, despite the hand the child had stuffed half-way down it's throat. Of course, of course of course—twins ran in Irene's family, it was how she had first come to his attention. Irene and Rudolf Adler had been partners in crime for nearly ten years, until he had gone to some eastern European country and gotten married and settled down. Irene had conceived with twins, with two boys who looked nothing alike—one took after him, and the other after Irene. It was also obvious, seeing him in person, that Stark was not in the kind of health that would lend itself to fathering a child, was actually likely impotent—Irene had probably seen that as well and offered him an heir for his empire. Sherlock nodded, knowing that his lips were twitching—not knowing to smile or frown—and strode across the room to his host.

"Phineas? A fine name, might I hold him?" Sherlock prided himself on being unflappable, and this was a shining moment of such ability. The maid handed over the little boy who had Irene's large blue eyes, settling the heavy child into Sherlock's arms. Phineas quickly nosed all around Sherlock, taking in the scents of his recent adventures, and grasping all around at his shirt and jacket—getting a feel of who this man was. Sherlock didn't immediately fall in love with the boy, but he knew right then that this child might well be his greatest experiment. Perhaps he could bully Mrs. Watson or Mrs. Hudson into looking after Phineas from time to time, even.

* * *

 

**2010, Pepper Potts & Mycroft Holmes (II)**

* * *

 

Pepper Potts liked coming to England. She always made sure to do a few fun things when she travelled abroad. Mostly touristy things, and she always made excellent business deals that Tony could never fault her for. It was the highest form of praise he could give, of not faulting you for what you did. This particular trip was more secret than most, as she was involved in a delicate contract which was slightly more under the table than either she or Tony liked, but there was nothing for it. Mycroft Holmes, at least, was a pleasant enough man to deal with. She'd never met him in person, but his correspondence through phone calls and email was nice—concise, to the point, and intelligent. Pepper didn't like to be surrounded by idiots, and neither did Mycroft Holmes.

She was excited to meet him, she decided as she was led far into the building to Mr. Holmes' office. He wasn't in, at first, and so she sat down primly until the assistant left the room. Pepper looked around, trying to see everything about Mr. Holmes before he arrived—the art a person collected and displayed was often a key to their personality. For instance, Tony could care less about Jackson Pollock, but he wanted to own as much of the man's work as possible—because it was pricy and expensively ugly to others. So Pepper wanted to see what kind of art Mr. Holmes wanted to show off.

Family photos were the ticket, today, it seemed. There were recent, nice photos of a forgettably brown-haired man with another man who had curly black hair and eyes which were not so much blue as they were gray. Another with the same two men, a bit younger with an older couple—their parents, it would seem. After that a grainy, discolored photo of the same man and wife, much younger, with two young boys. The dark haired one was clutching fiercely to a pirate hat, while the brunette appeared as studiously boring as possible.

A few more formal photos of Mycroft Holmes' father (she didn't know which one she would be dealing with, but by the severity of this office it was likely the brunette) at younger ages, as well as a wedding picture in black and white that looked like it was from the late thirties. The man in it looked as though he and Tony had the same ideas about hair care, but Pepper soon looked past that photo to another one, featuring the same man in his teens with a much older woman at his side—his mother?

There were another two photos on the mantelpiece, one of a man who had washed out eyes—probably a fierce blue, lost to the black and white of the photo—and fiercely curly hair and a young woman. Another wedding picture, then. But it was the man standing behind him, one hand on the younger man's shoulder, who startled Pepper. That man looked as though he could have been Tony in fifteen years. Which brought her attention to the last photograph on the mantel before actual paintings started to be hung above the photographs.

The man in the last photo was the spitting image of Tony Stark.

* * *

 

**1910-1914, Phineas Holmes, Sherlock Holmes (I)**

* * *

 

Phineas wondered sometimes if his father understood human relationships _at all_. Aunt Mary claimed that he did what he could, while Uncle Mycroft gave him a puzzled stare when he brought it up. Nana Hudson would sigh and shake her head. The latest difficulty was his father's inability to grasp the importance of getting married to Anita Caldwell—that she was not someone to be analyzed and picked apart and deduced. It also bothered him that his father gave him so little credit as to think that Phineas himself hadn't already analyzed and picked apart and deduced Anita.

True, his father Sherlock did understand Phineas' love for the woman to a certain extent—Uncle John said that Sherlock had loved Phineas' mother very much indeed, to have even engaged in the activity which had led to Phineas' birth. He couldn't fault his uncle's assessment, because in his twenty years he had never seen his father look twice at a woman—or even a man—the way that he would gaze at a certain unnamed photograph in his study. The woman was beautiful, and it was obvious she was his mother from the shape of her mouth and eyes, but Sherlock never once mentioned her name.

Phineas sometimes wished he knew her name, knew of how she had died so shortly after his birth—the only thing he had pried out of his father about her death was that she had not died of childbirth or sickness. That only left suicide or murder, and his father was wistful in recollecting her rather than forlorn which pointed to murder. Not even Uncle John would speak to him of it, although it was obvious that her death had not been a peaceful one from Uncle John's body language, and that she had not led a docile life if the great Sherlock Holmes had been captivated by her. Aunt Mary claimed to have never known The Woman, as Phineas referred to her in his mind. Nana Hudson petted at his hair and smoothed her old, wrinkled hands against his cheeks and said that his mother would be proud of his adventures, as The Woman had been an adventuress herself.

It was important, therefore, that he marry Anita Caldwell because Anita was perfectly boring. She was smart, had a great understanding of the world around her, but a nice unwillingness to learn of the machinations which made that world work. She might not be his ideal choice—a woman with enough fire in her to catch his full and complete attention would, of course, be as unsuitable to him as The Woman had been to his father—but she would at least survive. Boring people, unnoticed people, were never high on the hit-lists made by the enemies of smart, high profile people. At least, if they were they weren't _murdered_.

Phineas fully planned on living the boring domestic life which Uncle John had so taken to, with only a side of the adventures his father had introduced to him at a young age. He also hoped to live a long happy life with Anita, and to take care of his father in his advancing age—the man would be sixty in five years, and his long and brutally active life was catching up with him. Unfortunately, Phineas never got the opportunity.

Five years after their marriage, and only shortly after he and Anita found that they were to be parents, war had broken out on the continent. Before the next year was out, Phineas Holmes was dead—fodder for a machine gun—leaving Anita Holmes to raise his son Albert and to look after his aging father Sherlock.

* * *

 

**2010, Pepper Potts and Mycroft Holmes (II)**

* * *

 

"Ah, Miss Potts, so good of you to come," Mycroft Holmes' soft voice sounded behind her, and Pepper turned around fast and guilty—she had meant to sit down after inspecting the photographs and paintings but it was not to be. The man across the room from her was the boring brunette—he was smart and cunning, she could tell, but didn't advertise that to the world at large because the world frankly didn't need to know—who was smiling in a faintly disturbing way.

"Mr. Holmes, it is good to meet you in person finally. I was just admiring the family photos you have collected here." He turned his focus to the pictures behind her, managing to look even more bored than before.

"Yes, my mother insists that I keep them up to remind myself of the great service the family has done for the country in the past. It is more to keep them away from my brother, Sherlock, who cannot be trusted with such old, valuable things. You seemed quite fascinated though, would you like a history of some of the sitters?"

"No—no, I…" she decided to go for it, "I couldn't help but notice that one of your ancestors looks a great deal like Tony—Mr. Stark. Would you mind-?"

"Really? I confess I've never much looked at them after I had Anthea arrange them chronologically," Mycroft stepped forward and leaned in to sternly gaze at the photo which Pepper showed him. His eyebrows raised just a hair and his mouth turned down into a frown.

"I believe I agree with you, Miss Potts, let me call my brother and set him to finding out the truth. We have a meeting which I fear has been made late enough already," he said as he took out a phone and rapidly searched for a number. He found it in moments and put it to his ear, speaking in clipped tones to the person on the other end.

"Doctor Watson, good of you to answer so quickly. Yes. Yes. No. Please ask my brother to do a small favor for me. No. No, of course. Yes. I need him to look up everything he can on great-great-grandfather Sherlock, I believe it was once a point of fascination to him that he is named after—yes. Please, thank you Doctor Watson, yes that will be all." With a snap the phone was closed and Mycroft smiled with only his mouth—not an open grin like Tony had when he was satisfied like a cat who found his way into an aviary for birds with clipped wings. Pepper smiled hesitantly back at him, suddenly hoping that they'd make at least a little money from this deal.

"Now, we have a meeting to conduct, do we not, Miss Potts?"

* * *

 

**1932-1940s, Albert Holmes and Sherlock Holmes (I)**

* * *

 

Albert Holmes had never known his father, although it was obvious that Phineas had been much loved and was much missed. His mother Anita did her best, but often left Albert in the care of Grandfather. Anita was unable to cope that such a rational man, such an intelligent and bright man as Phineas Holmes had been cut down in less than a second. There was, however, a haunted resignation in Grandfather's eyes which made it easier for him to look after Albert than it was for her. Grandfather still believed in rationality, still believed in facts and deductions, and helped Albert learn the same habits where he could.

His mother died of a heart condition in 1932, when he was seventeen. Grandfather, who was nearing eighty, had clucked his tongue and murmured that it was just heartbreak. The man was nearly blind by that time, a condition which he hated fiercely, and spent most of his days in their flat. Albert took care of him and sat with him at the window, telling him every detail of every passing stranger—marveling at how Grandfather was able to identify the color of a woman's hat by the cut of her dress and height of her hair. The old man didn't speak to him of days gone by, preferring to badger Albert with questions and queries. Albert didn't mind, knowing that Grandfather had few of his old friends and acquaintances left alive. He'd had a brother who had passed away some years ago, as well as an old colleague who had died when Albert was nine. Doctor Watson's son was the man who looked after Albert when Grandfather was feeling too tired or poorly to attend to him.

"You are a good grandson, Albert, I am glad I have gotten to know you," Grandfather whispered one day in 1938, almost dozing as he sat by the window and tried to deduce the world outside from just the sounds he heard. Albert wished that the old man wouldn't do such things, because the world outside was a grim and dark one.

"Grandfather…"

"Albert, I averted a world-war once and I lived through another in my middle old age. There will be another yet before I pass, do not fret that I am lamenting the world we live in," came the reply from the old man, "I am celebrating the fact that despite my son's death, there is still a bright, smart light in a world that I am too old to explore and protect."

They sat in quiet silence for most of the rest of the afternoon. Albert went to get a paper to read aloud—Grandfather's voice bordered between jovial and bored as he stated the answers to every scandal and mystery therein—and Grandfather dozed off and on. The twenty three year old believed he was getting better at omitting headlines—the old man was completely blind now—because he hadn't been caught at it even once today.

"You should work on getting married sooner than later, Albert. If today's headlines have any truth to them there will be war within a year I wager—and you know how terribly good I am at that—and all the young women will be getting married to men they'll never see again. After that all of the good ones will be gone." Needless to say, Albert was happily married in less than a year. He never asked his grandfather what he'd meant by "good ones," but old Mrs. Watson had informed him that that probably meant 'eccentric or devious,' to 'Sherlock.' Albert couldn't imagine calling the old man _Sherlock_ , as Grandfather was too emotionally closed off in recent years to ever warm to allowing Albert to call him by his first name.

When war broke out, Albert volunteered for the intelligence service—he had no desire to break Grandfather's heart by getting shot up within months of enlisting, as his father Phineas had, and he had no desire to come back to his wife Sylvia a nervous wreck. The last time Grandfather claimed to have been able to see him was in July of 1935, but the last time Albert saw his grandfather Sherlock Holmes was in 1940. Sherlock died of a heart attack—a murmur which had been present in his heart for fifty years—when Albert was away, called to try to decode messages intercepted from the Germans. Sylvia, who had greatly liked Albert's grandfather, wanted to name their first child after the man but Albert had refused. At the time he had been under a great amount of stress and unable to cope with the loss of the old, cranky and brilliant detective. They'd named their son Aaron, after Sylvia's grandfather, and with two daughters later on there was no opportunity to rectify the matter.

* * *

 

**2010, John Watson (no relation) and Sherlock Holmes (II)**

* * *

 

"That was your brother. Wants you to throw yourself at genealogy—something about your great—"

"—-great-grandfather Sherlock, I would imagine, yes? Boring, solved it years ago. Asexual, manic-depressive, high-functioning sociopath like myself, one adopted son who died in World War I, died alone in his bed while his grandson's wife was volunteering at a hospital. Why does Mycroft want to know?"

Recovering his wits from the fast list Sherlock had spit out, John cast about for details from the scant conversation he'd had with Mycroft.

"There was…no sound around him, so he was by himself—probably in his office, that place is like a cavern—but he said last week that someone from Stark Industries was coming to negotiate a deal that he had to personally take care of. So he keeps family…photographs in his office….and maybe they got…curious." John paused from time to time to stare, agog, at Sherlock who was quickly wakening, almost as if he'd gotten a shot of life into his veins, something that caused him to sit up and take notice. He kept quiet, though, which meant that he was no longer listening, he was thinking. John could already see the wheels flying to life as the engine of Sherlock's brain fired into gear.

"Oh of course, I can see it. That would mean that…yes. The Woman went to America and…oh, of course! Oh Mummy will be so thrilled that she can finally put that picture up and…yes!" Sherlock was standing now, poised to almost jump up in the air or go careening around the flat, "Don't you see it, John?"

"Sherlock, I'm afraid that I don't follow your excitement. Would you mind elucidating what great mystery you've managed to solve?" At this Sherlock settled into his chair like a cat, satisfied after eating a nest of baby canaries and awaiting the mother's return with eager claws. John wondered if he ought to brace himself with something, tea perhaps to calm his nerves later on. Sherlock didn't give him time to decide, though, choosing to charge into the problem forthwith.

"I need to borrow your laptop, immediately." John shook his head and handed the computer over to his flatmate. He bent over Sherlock's shoulder and looked at the screen as the dark haired man moused around frantically. Sherlock's eyes had already been glazed with a discovery before he quickly opened up the browser and found a newspaper archive—John frowned, feeling that the digital age was moving just a little faster than he really wanted it to. This was something normally done by relentlessly sifting through microfiche, not a simple internet search. The year **1892** brought up interesting headlines and front page articles— _SHERLOCK HOLMES ALIVE AND WELL,_ and others like _HOLMES A FATHER? SHERLOCK HOLMES SEEN WITH TODDLER_. Sherlock in 2010 growled and retooled his search for **1891**.

_HAWAIIAN PRINCESS BECOMES QUEEN—THE END OF 1887 CONSTITUTION?_

_LONDONERS NOW ABLE TO TELEPHONE PARISIANS!_

_CAVENDISH-BENTNICK PASSES PEACEFULLY, AGE 69_

**1890** , and another murmur of discontent from Sherlock.

December. _SHERLOCK HOLMES HONORED BY SCOTLAND YARD_

October. _SHERLOCK HOLMES MISSING, PRESUMED DEAD AFTER FALL FROM CHANNEL STEAMBOAT_

October. _PROFESSOR JAMES MORIARTY MISSING AFTER PRESIDING OVER SUCCESSFUL SWISS PEACE SUMMIT_

August. _UNREST IN EUROPE—ANARCHISTS IN STRAUSBURG_

March. _AMERICAN MANUFACTURING MOGUL LOSES THIRD OF ASSETS IN MESSY DIVORCE—BRITISH MARKETS POUNCE_

"I…I didn't know your family had past associations with Scotland Yard."

"Mm, they don't let just anyone poke about—did you think I came to the Yard and told them to listen to me? Come now, even Anderson isn't that stupid," John got the distinct impression that Sherlock was deeply disappointed in him. Or was teasing him, it was difficult to tell. "The family has always helped out once in a while, I'm just the first one in decades that they've gotten any use out of really. More like I'm the first person in four generations to approach the deductive power of the original Sherlock Holmes."

 **1889**.

December. _AMERICAN MANUFACTURING MOGUL ARNOLD STARK TO DIVORCE WIFE, IRENE STARK (NEE ADLER)_

October. _"A NEW DIRECTION," PROMISES BUILDER OF BLACKWALL FLATS IN WHITECHAPEL_

June. _PROUD PARENTS, ARNOLD AND IRENE STARK TO ADOPT_

May. _LORD COWARD DIES MYSTERIOUSLY IN PRISON—A NEW BLACKWOOD?_

February. _LORD COWARD PLEADS INNOCENT TO CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT TREASON_

"But you said that you invente—"

"Yes, and I did! My great-great-grandfather was awarded a permanent stipend by the Queen for _services rendered above all measure of gratitude_ which made him a rich man who did not have to work, which means that every case he handled after that was even more on a strictly volunteer basis. I am an on-call consulting detective, my great-great-grandfather was no such thing." Sherlock's words were rapid, upset even, but his eyes never left the screen and he never stopped scrolling through the archives laid out in front of him. Trust Sherlock to make such a hairline distinction—his namesake hadn't put his profession on his taxes, therefore it was not a profession and therefore a hobby.

 **1888**.

November. _LORD BLACKWOOD FINALLY DEAD, HANGED PROPERLY THIS TIME_

Sherlock scrolled a little more before heaving a sigh and giving the laptop back to John. The doctor mutely took the computer back and closed it, not even glancing at the headline or the accompanying photo (May. _SERIAL MURDERER APPREHENDED BY SHERLOCK HOLMES AND SCOTLAND YARD_ _Sherlock Holmes, acting as an assistant to Scotland Yard with his colleague Doctor John Watson, heroically saved the life of…_ ). Sherlock's eyes were once again fixed on the ceiling.

"Phone, please."

John got up, found the damned thing, and gave it to his flatmate. Sherlock quickly texted a few things to whoever he needed to before setting the phone down on his chest, steepling his fingers in thought. John watched him silently, hoping that whatever Sherlock was planning over the next few hours, it wouldn't interfere with his date. Sarah was a rare woman, willing to put up with him and more importantly willing to put up with his flatmate. It was even more boggling that Sherlock tolerated her at all, which only meant that John worked all the harder to stay with her. He didn't want to think about how many other women would throw their drink at Sherlock and refuse to see John ever again.

* * *

 

**2004, Aaron Holmes and Sherlock Holmes (II)**

* * *

 

Aaron Holmes grew up quietly in his father's shadow. His father had been one of the chief code-breakers of the Empire during the war, and later helped to found several secret organizations to help keep order around the world. They both knew that Aaron's mother wasn't quite the mothering type. She was fiery willed and free-spirited, good traits in a woman, but not so much ones which made a good mother in Albert's opinion. So Aaron accompanied his father to many secret meetings, riding on his father's coattails—almost literally—into the higher branches of one the more secret organizations that Albert Holmes had founded. Anonymously, of course.

There was family history associated with his name, with all of their names, and when he finally married—a woman he met at work, a woman who he never knew the real name of—and settled to have children he knew what he would name them. Since it would be easiest to do what his father had done, Aaron decided that his firstborn would follow him into the service for the Queen. He looked to the first Holmes who served the Queen—Mycroft, a strange name then and a stranger one now—for inspiration. When his wife, who was going _Mary_ that week, informed him not a few years later that he was once again to be a father it had seemed only right to name the child after Mycroft's younger brother, Sherlock, if they had a boy. Hopefully the child would take after his namesake and have an exceptionally successful career in Aaron's office. The gamble had nearly paid off. Sherlock was one of the smartest people that Aaron knew, and he made it his _business_ to know the smartest minds in the country.

He of course lamented that his son couldn't catch a break. Sherlock had spent his childhood alone, fighting with Mycroft and other boys, his teenage years stuck in a purgatory of having the smarts but not the age to back them up. The worst blow was that before Aaron could recruit him to the office, Sherlock turned to several fierce drug addictions that lasted through his twenties. Aaron and even old Albert had repeatedly tried to coax him into the service of the Queen, but that had seemed to be physically repulsive to Sherlock. His son claimed that he was already bereft of compassion and personality, that he didn't need to further exorcise what little was left of his soul—language which neither Aaron nor Albert had taught him, which cast a suspicious glance towards Aaron's wife who doted on her sons deeply. The only named that had ever stuck on his wife was the one given to her by Mycroft and adopted by Sherlock: Mummy.

Although when questioned, Sherlock always demurred, saying that Mummy had nothing to do with his decision or his revulsion. Aaron and Albert could do nothing to sway him, and pressing Mycroft to bully him was akin to driving wrong-way on the M-4—doable, but highly dangerous with severe repercussions for the driver. Mycroft saved his fights with Sherlock for his own business, and his territorial nature forced all other competitors out. Mycroft had taken an odd glee, several years ago, in helping Sherlock cut most of his acquaintances out of his life. Even Aaron had been booted to the kerb, and now the only thing he ever knew about Sherlock was that he was alive.

Aaron sometimes wondered just what went on in his son Sherlock's mind, who his friends were if he had any, who he loved if he loved. The estrangement from much of the family had come after Sherlock had decided to go cold turkey on his drug addictions. He had moved out and away, and only Mycroft knew where he lived. The only people that Sherlock hadn't cut out of his life entirely were his mother and his brother. The decision to get clean was a relieving one for Aaron, who tried later to figure out what had caused it. It was as though something had snapped in his frustrated, unhappy son.

It was as though it dawned on Sherlock that he was _thirty_. That he was thirty and that people would _listen_ to him now because he was bloody _thirty_. These days, Aaaron knew that after this realization Sherlock had become cold and distant towards most of his family—he was still warm towards _Mummy_ , and half-way civil towards Mycroft but he cut the rest of them out. Aaron's two sisters, their spouses and children, his old class chums, everyone. Sherlock had worked for two years to completely fight off the demons of his twenties, sending tips and letters to the police during that time until one day a DI, Lestrade if Aaron remembered right, had put it together that all of the tips were coming from the same person. And given that person, Sherlock, a call back. That had been the advent of the Consulting Detective.

Well, it kept the boy out of trouble for the most part.

* * *

 

**2010, Pepper Potts and Molly Hooper.**

* * *

 

After their meeting, Mycroft had them driven to a hospital where his brother Sherlock did most of his work. The man would show up sooner or later, Mycroft said with a smile, and it would be best to allow him to come to them rather than the other way 'round. Pepper got the distinct impression that the last time Mycroft had seen Sherlock was when something had been lobbed at the plump, boring brother and that Mycroft was minimizing the amount of things that could be thrown at him. Tony threw enough things when he was madly upset that she knew the feel of a stake-out, of choosing the right ground to be on when the fight started. Probably the only person who knew Tony's temper better than her was Rhodey, who had a perversely gleeful habit of trying to provoke the man's ire. Both of them tried to control the volatile genius as best they could in their own ways.

The hospital was a college as well, it seemed. A place where young doctors came to become better doctors. Mycroft guided her effortlessly through the halls, taking her away from patient-access locations to labs where there were access codes to get in and out of them. Pepper resisted asking why Mr. Holmes had such easy entrance to the place, choosing to instead remind herself that he held a position in the British government for which there was no official office—he was head of the secret-secret-secret organization of Secrets with an embellished capital 'S.' Of course he could have the access codes to a few _labs_. He reminded her, a little bit, of Agent Coulson—only a little less warm.

"Ah, Doctor Hooper, it is good to see you," Mycroft said with a smile which failed to reach the rest of his face. The short, mousy woman coming into the lab hardly startled and Pepper wondered if she was used to such intrusions into fairly secured place. The woman, Doctor Hooper, had wavy light brown hair as well as large, haunting brown eyes. Her mouth was small, her lips narrow, nothing a touch of lipstick wouldn't cure, and her nose was well formed and strong—Pepper felt a sudden pang of jealousy for that nose before reminding herself that hers was perfectly nice.

"My-croft, I didn't expect—I—"

"My colleague, Miss Potts, is here to meet my brother. Do you know if he will be showing up today?" At this the woman flinched just a little before straightening and crossing the lab to point at some equipment. Pointed at it, but didn't even touch it—Pepper understood intuitively the motions, because Tony _knew_ if she or anyone else had touched _anything_. There was typically hell to pay, which showed in Doctor Hooper's careful non-touching of the equipment.

"He has to check in on this experiment before the day is out or else start over, so I would imagine so. His doctor friend would be wholly unable to finish it for him." The woman ran out of steam, intimidated by Mycroft it seemed although there was a warmth to how she spoke of the man's brother. Pepper took a few steps towards her, extending her hand in greeting.

"I'm Pepper Potts, I work for Tony Stark. I'm here on business but got carried away by curiosity." Miss Hooper's thin mouth curved into a sharp smile—it was how her lips were formed that made it sharp, not her demeanor, Pepper decided—and took Pepper's hand.

"Molly Hooper, I'm a pathologist here at St. Bart's. Aside from Sherlock's flatmate, I suppose I kind of work for Sherlock when he's here—not that he needs much help, he just—"

"Molly, what possessed you to let my brother in here?" The confident woman who had just introduced herself disappeared into a waif at the sound of a man's deep voice. She retracted her hand from Pepper's almost immediately and turned to the speaker who had just popped in the door. He was the man with the dark, curly hair and the washed out gray eyes from the pictures in Mycroft's office, Sherlock Holmes. Pepper wondered what kind of person Mr. Holmes was if he was able to create such an effect in a woman brave enough to become a pathologist.

"Oh he was here when I arrived, nothing I could have done. He was just introducing Miss Potts here when you came in," Molly said quickly and softly, fiddling with a notebook and pen, not looking up at Sherlock Holmes. The dark haired man stared at her a little longer before lifting his eyes to Pepper. The look he gave her wasn't so much an undressing one but rather an un _making_ one. Tony gave her enough undressing glances for her to know the difference, and this man had anything but her underwear on his mind. She had the unsettling feeling that he suddenly knew what kind of toothpaste she used.

"I see. Well, I have to speak with Mycroft a moment, I will leave the two of you to finish your pleasantries. Molly, has everything been going well with my work?" He waited just long enough to get a quick nod out of the other woman before he ducked out of the lab with Mycroft hot on his heels. Molly didn't deflate after he left but rather returned to her real height and poise.

"So that is Mycroft's brother, then?"

"Yes," Molly said softly, a touch of a dreaminess to her tone as she looked at her notebook in earnest. Pepper found a stool and sat down several feet away from the brown haired woman, thinking. Thinking that in some ways they were the same—the women who didn't matter unless they did. Ready to do anything for a selfish and controlling man. She wasn't sure if her ability to say 'no' to Tony was a good thing or not, some days, but after meeting Molly Hooper she wondered what that 'no' looked like to others. Did she look like Molly when dealing with Tony? Was it as obvious to everyone else that she was in love with him as much as this woman was in love with Sherlock Holmes?

"You should tell him, you know," she said suddenly, startling the pathologist into nearly dropping her notes all over the floor. Molly took a deep breath and righted the few papers threatening to escape, squaring her shoulders and turning to face Pepper. They both knew what she'd meant, there was no need to air it out. _You should tell him you love him, that you're mad for him_. The things that Pepper knew she could never do with Tony, because of her job, because of _him_ , maybe Molly Hooper could do with Sherlock Holmes.

"What do you suggest, Miss Potts? I've asked him for coffee, I've invited him to parties, and told him he's brilliant to his face. He's never so much as asked how I'm feeling after a short bout of flu, and only recently has he started thanking me for bringing him coffee like I'm some trained pet. Believe me, this is far easier."

"Easier is being terrified he'll find out and mock you for it? Easier is never getting over him and living alone? Please, you have the chance to actually have the man you love—the man I love, well, he just about physically can't love me back, he's far too interested in the next woman he can sleep wi—"

"And Sherlock isn't interested in having a go at _anyone,_ Miss Potts! He is about as interested in sex as fish are with space! The problem isn't that he would cheat or be at risk of it, the problem is that the things I would want in a relationship he could never give me, would never even _think_ of giving me—there's no point, I've tried and tried for _years_ and have learned that I'm happier where I am. I still get to see him, and there isn't a hunted look in his eyes anymore when he catches sight of me. Once I stopped trying, I started to get to see him more, because I wasn't a threat."

"But…"

"There are no buts," Molly said, suddenly soft, withdrawing to her work once again. "The first time I met him, I knew he was the one for me. I could date other people, but the only one who might make me happy for the rest of my life would be him. That's why it's not so bad to live alone, because I'm not _missing_ anything. It's the same way it would be if I _did_ have him."

* * *

 

**2010, Sherlock (II) and Mycroft (II) Holmes.**

* * *

 

"What did you dredge up, Brother?"

"Shh, in a moment. Leave the door unlatched, open it just a little," Sherlock whispered, hunkering himself down next to the door which was left just slightly ajar on his orders. Sherlock suddenly wished he'd brought John with him. His brother stood over him, arms crossed and his face disapproving. Likely his brother thought that he was being childish. Listening in was cheating at deducing people, they both knew that from Mummy and Aaron's lessons in the subject. Useful for gaining information, but cheating. Sherlock ignored those reminders, choosing to focus on listening to the conversation which followed his departure from the room.

He knew that he was a poisonous presence in the lives of most people, and that the only ones who had so far proved any resistance to the toxins of his personality were John Watson and Molly Hooper. He, therefore, tried to ensure that he knew how much longer he had with them. If that meant listening at doors and hacking the occasional email account, so be it. Sherlock was not familiar with guilt, and it tasted worse to him than to others because of it—Molly understood him so thoroughly, and stayed near despite how he hurt her. Sherlock knew that John would classify a continuance of the situation as 'not good,' but Sherlock had few ideas on how to fix it.

With John he was already at his limit, there was simply nothing more to be redirected towards Molly as well. This did not, however, make the situation any more bearable or reasonable. There had to be a rational way in which he kept both John and Molly in exactly the way he had them now, or perhaps even closer. He might be able to tolerate being closer—at this rate he was going to lose them both, so why not try something impossible to achieve the improbable? Sherlock shook his head once, standing up and facing Mycroft finally. If he gave his brother his answer, then Mycroft might be more inclined not to interfere with his plan.

"The Woman had twins, one she left in America and the other she hid and gave to Albert's grandfather. The American boy took after his father, and that continued through the family line down to Tony Stark—Phineas took after The Woman, whose name is _Irene Adler_ oddly enough." Mycroft's eyebrow ticked upwards.

"Any relation to our Adler?"

"Didn't look it up, can't be bothered. A question, Mycroft—do you know if Mrs. Hudson is averse to cats?" Mycroft's eyebrows plunged down towards his eyes and his mouth thinned. Sherlock didn't waver, knowing that the person best able to read him in the entire world was his older brother. Maybe if he kept his two survivors close then he wouldn't lose them as everyone else in his family had lost those they loved. His father had lost Mummy—not that Sherlock lamented his father's absence from his life in the least—and Grandfather Albert had lost his mother and grandfather. Phineas had died terribly young as well. And then there was the other Sherlock Holmes. His namesake had lost The Woman, as well as his own Doctor Watson, a man who had loved him dearer than a brother but had been too afraid to pursue him—in his youth, Sherlock had found the good doctor's notes in a lockbox, pored through them twice and was satisfied that if the doctor had made one warm overture early on to the detective then history might well have gone very differently. Those overtures were received with a curious enthusiasm later in their lives, but Sherlock did wonder just would have happened if they'd come earlier. In the 1880s rather than the 1910s. Which brought him back to his own Doctor Watson.

Recently John had begun mentioning perhaps a more involved relationship with the incredibly tolerant Sarah Sawyer, hinting—terribly, Sherlock added silently—that maybe he would ask Sarah to move in with him. John was asking if it was alright to have someone else in the house, breathing and moving and living and blinking, when Sherlock needed the house a certain way to just think. Sherlock knew that John might perhaps leave him on account of Sarah Sawyer—Molly Hooper was a poor replacement for John, but perhaps could be taught some adventuring should John become suddenly matrimonially allergic to it.

Molly wouldn't be horrified by the experiments in the fridge, at the very least.

"Sherlock, surely—she will need far more from you than her cat needs from her. People are not pets, I thought you were doing so well learning this because of John Watson—Doctor Hooper is not to be treated like a generic brand cereal."

"One still needs cereal in the morning, Mycroft, despite the brand, but your worry is unfounded. If Molly is living with me, then John will not feel as though he has to leave me in order to have his Doctor Sawyer."

"Sherlock, your flat is not meant to house four people," Mycroft's voice was getting cross, angry that Sherlock was missing some part of the equation. Sherlock took a deep breath, squaring his shoulders so that his spine slid into place so that he looked as tall as possible. His brother's glare did not alleviate itself, so Sherlock stared down his nose at his older brother.

"It barely sees any use, and you know it. John is often at work, and I rarely touch anything in it unless physically forced or for one of my experiments. Two women, who both work, would not be so great a burden on it. Besides, two more people to help John do the dishes he creates because you know very well that I rarely eat there. Now, do take yourself and your increasingly annoying habit of butting in on my affairs and see it back to your office. I will take care of this myself, and you will not be kidnapping Molly to threaten her as you did John." He turned away at this and stalked back into the lab where the woman from America and Molly were chatting lightly. There was a tension in Molly's shoulders that told how much the woman's words had affected the pathologist. The woman had opened the septic wound in Molly's heart where his pathologist kept him and the American had rubbed salt in it to try and cleanse the injury. Well meaning, and destructive.

Sherlock frowned, deeply disliking the fact that someone had tried to interfere with Molly and her life—deeply disliking that someone had forced her to bare her soul, because if Sherlock hated one thing in the world it was the awful way in which people refused to _look_ at another person and _understand_. He hated the fact that people were socially coerced to verbally relive their shames and sorrows, that expressing their joy was not enough. Sherlock thought often of the adage—some cultures have a hundred words for snow or blue or bunny rabbits or whatever made them sick up kittens and rainbows—and applied it to his own lexicon of deductions. He could see, from a hundred paces, heartbreak and depression. From fifty he could also see worry, apathy, and alcoholism among many other things. From twenty five he could deduce the causes of the depression and the alcoholism, and from ten paces he could see the emotional source of all these afflictions.

There was no point, to him, of asking someone why they were unhappy when he already _knew_. He had been reliably informed that he didn't have a heart, but _something_ in him understood pain and the not-goodness of bringing it on other people. He would rather comment on their joy than their sorrow, unless he was horribly, _horribly_ bored and uncomfortable. He had once brought pain on Molly Hooper, and she had been good enough to forgive him for it. He tried to be good enough for her to forgive, because he only had her, and John, and barely Mycroft. Sherlock couldn't be picky.

"Molly, would you come over here for a tick?" He made sure to use his best "Only for Molly Smile," as he said it, striding across the lab to his experiment—one on blood toxins, a fascinating subject he just could never get enough of. As for his smile, he made sure that he never used Molly's smiles for anyone but Molly—they were already flimsy enough that he didn't need to have her completely disbelieve them. Especially not now, with his new project in mind.

As she turned, a little puzzled—he never asked for help—but willing, Sherlock looked to his experiment, to find the excuse of needing her help. Ah, the transfers to the sterile containers so he could analyze the results later. It would go much quicker with four hands than just two. His brother slipped into the room behind him, speaking pleasantly to the American woman behind them— _he plays at being a scientist, his real talents lay in reading people, as though you would read a book, Miss Potts. Now, about that rather striking resemblance you noticed earlier—_ Sherlock indicated to Molly what he needed her help with.

He would not ask her today, he decided, because she would realize he had been eavesdropping on her and realize that he was both taking pity on her as well as possessing an ulterior motive. Perhaps he would lure her in by offering up a relationship, if only she would move in—and never leave. Or maybe he should cajole her into moving into the basement apartment, a cool place for her cat in the summers and only Mrs. Hudson above her to make noise. But no, that still left John room to escape him—and he would not fall victim to that as his Victorian predecessor had, of losing his Watson and his anchor in the same fell phrase _I Do_.

Molly was biting her lip and looking at him out of the corner of her eye as she worked. She was precise, something which Sherlock valued highly, despite that they were close enough to elbow one another. He wasn't bothered, but he knew that Molly was sometimes only moments away from dropping things when he paid her too much attention. This could work, he assured himself, working just as precisely as the pathologist next to him. He would keep John, and he would keep Molly, and he would deal with Sarah. This could be, in fact, one of his greatest experiments ever.

* * *

 

**2010, Tony Stark and Sherlock Holmes (II)**

* * *

 

There were no such things as unknown callers in Tony's world. No one got into his private lines without him knowing who they were, where they were, and probably why they were calling. He didn't like to be handed things, and he didn't like to answer phone calls that he was unprepared for. It was why Pepper was so wonderful, because she didn't mind things like that. It was just fantastic.

So there was more than a little alarm when Butterfingers dropped his phone into the middle of his workspace, startling him into nearly dropping the very delicate superchip he was trying to embed into one of Pepper's shoes. The chip would make sure that Jarvis would always know where she was, which was a good thing. Because that meant that _Tony_ would always know where she was. It was a good plan, and Butterfingers—and whoever had _texted_ him—had nearly ruined it. The message was from a blocked phone number—something quite remarkable, given Tony's thorough coding of his phone a few months ago to _prevent_ stuff like this happening.

_I am Sherlock Holmes, and apparently one of your last living relatives. I have a brother, Mycroft, who is nosy. We have a father we don't speak to and a mother we dote on. Neither of us participate in Christmas, birthdays, national holidays, or graduations. I am a consulting detective. Should you ever need my assistance, I prefer to text. I have no specific desire to ever meet you face to face and this is likely our last communique._

_SH_

What the living hell. He stared at the message, reading it again a few times, trying to piece together just what he'd been informed of. And why he was informed of it. Petting Butterfingers absently, Tony pushed away from the workspace and went to his computer, quickly tracing the blocked number and thinking. To hell with a text message, "Sherlock Holmes" was going to hear from him whether he liked it or not. It took a few moments, but the British government's encoding system was abysmally easy to crack—although not quite so easy as the NSA, but that was another story entirely. Soon he had all the information he needed.

"Jarvis, I need to suit up. We're going to take Pepper out for dinner."

"Sir, Miss Potts is in the United Kingdom closing the deal with our contact there. Surely you remember?"

"That I do, which is why I need you to find us a nice place to go out for dinner—I'm thinking curry. They eat curry there, Jarvis?"

"Among many other things, yes, Sir."

"Good. There's a little invite list on my computer, please send it to the numbers I've got listed there. Now, suit."

"May I enquire as to the reason for this sudden trip abroad?" Jarvis asked as Tony stood still for the robots to encase the suit around him. He checked his latest palladium reading and decided this trip was worth it—he would catch a ride back on the plane with Pepper.

"Oh, got a little family reunion planned for tonight, the usual."


End file.
